July 2017
Sarah White
sarahwhitepages@gmail.com
sarahwhitepages@gmail.com
I live in New York City where I enjoy art classes, plays, and concerts. Lucky me. Since retiring as a professor of French language and literature, I’ve published four poetry collections. The fifth, “to one who bends my time,” is forthcoming from Deerbrook Editions later this year.
Commentary on the Challah
Before I braid the bread,
I say a blessing
learned from Miri Birk,
sage rabbitzin
who gave her recipe
to me, a woman
twice her age
and once a Presbyterian.
Why, Adonai, am I here?
Who made me eighty
this year? Is it you
or Miri who persuades me,
at this stage, to braid
like a sage, like a bride?
2.
To drape my bread
I hem a pillow cover
from a family hamper.
As I ply my thread
it ravels like a puzzle.
Something in it quarrels
with the needle
propelled by my thimble.
Interwoven yet estranged
strands of thinning linen
seem impatient to be shriven.
Spirits—siblings, cousins--
yours are negligible problems.
Sleep. You are forgiven.
© 2017 Sarah White
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