The Days of Awe (Yamim Noraim) are also called the Days of Repentance, for serious introspection, a time to consider the sins of the previous year and repent before Yom Kippur.
One of the ongoing themes of the Days of Awe is the concept that there are books that our deity (maybe Aretha Franklin?) writes our names and who will live and who will die, who will have a good life and who will have a bad life, for next year. This happens on Rosh Hashanah, but our actions during the Days of Awe can alter the decree. The actions that change the decree are teshuvah, tefilah and tzedakah, repentance, prayer, good deeds (usually, charity). This concept of writing in books is the source of the common greeting during this time: May YOU be inscribed and sealed. (Hard to know exactly what that means. We can discuss) So what we do this week might matter a lot.
After the dentist
my teeth their own long story of forgiveness
we met to wander,
take a break from what this world
can be feel what else can happen too
watching people in a park
and then we decided to have a drink
anything but blue Peter said
in a bar called IGUANA
there are many Days of Awe
in Iguana, conversations of forgiveness
a frequent occurrence
happy hour is long and drinks
are six dollars. Woman near us
came to talk and even though
Peter had said No Strangers
he liked her as she began her long
and detailed story, a story for a book,
incest, first marriage, handsome older
man from Iran (he was at the end of the bar)
she’s his fourth wife eight years
they’ve been together and there we were
discussing forgiveness in a bar, repentance
too, and she even wondered if all that she
said could be in a book. It would have
to be big, she said.
