Holidays Eluded

Never experienced joy on a holiday.
It is a riddle. Like many things
never experienced.

Climbing Mt.Fuji for example.

My grandmother did cook and bake
and surely she was a genius in
the kitchen may Hashem bless her
soul for eternity.

But there it ended.

For the food was mixed up
with the negativity of emotions
that pervaded the household of

the angry ones,
the misplaced and
the silently brooding.

Synagogue was an opportunity to be *on* and
be what we never were and I dreaded,
no - hated it.

Screaming matches would begin
but it was rare that I yielded.
Pitch forks and hot coals.
I would stay home alone during those days
trying to re-piece fragments.

The Holy Days -
of avoidance,
non-participatory pastimes
where the Jewish people, God
and I
were on opposite
sides.

Us and Them.
And Them were never at war with each other
holding knives
and cramming heads into ovens.

Simpler people with uncomplicated lives.

And God was furious at me as I was told
because of the suffering I caused my mother.
Over
and
over
and
over.

Fear and Shame, there came
a break between myself and them.

Reasoning: better to be invisible
than to bear my scars under scrutiny.

All these years
I've been solitary
healing wounds,
trying for some forgiveness

running to fields and woods
for my redemption

while
the song of a ram
in the distance
behind broken walls
sounds out the cries
of wounded souls
and all the People say
Amen.