Yom Kippur, Exile, Shara McCallum
Yom Kippur ends today 10/9. The Jewish holy day calls for a return of the exiles. The streets near my house are lined with exiles coming home to the synagogue. I am not a Jew, but the day gets to me. It’s such an important theme. Most of us are lost. Sometimes religious rituals help us find our way home. Here’s a poem by Shara McCallum, a Jamaican-born poet, that takes up the theme of exile, and some of my favorite images of birds and fish.
Exile Say morning and a bird trills on a doorstep outside a kitchen. Inside, fingers roll johnnycakes, dropping balls of dough into oil, splattering, singeing a wrist. Here, a woman is always singing, each note tethering sound to meaning. The trick is to wait on this doorstep forever The trick is to remember time is a fish swimming through dark water.