Prayer for 5785

The Tattoo Theme, Continued

A poem I wrote in late 2024 anticipating the tattoo I got in May of the following year (See: Sunday’s post), written shortly before I began the formal study for my conversion in December of the same year. I’ve not had much success in getting devotional poetry placed in journals, so here you go.

It should be noted, for those who understand formal poetry, that the poem is in an unrhymed version of Len Krisak’s elegiac meter (alternating iambic hexameter and iambic pentameter lines), which is hard to represent in Substack’s formatting, which generally deformats indentation or centering in poetry. So be it—the alternation is clear where it appears in Teshuvah, my forthcoming book. The Tetragrammaton Name of God is given below; it’s pronounced “Adonai” rather than “HaShem” when I read the work aloud, both for stylistic and metrical reasons.

Prayer for 5785 
Dvar Eloheinu yakum le-olam
דְבַר־אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יָק֥וּם לְעוֹלָֽם

When the frost comes, and all my festivals are done,
And the eight nights that singe me to the vein
Are burnt out and extinguished; when my fumbling fists
That hit hard but inexpertly as I
Strike at the tombstone pads in Krav Maga with slow
And heavy movements are unclenched, and my
Muscles allowed to rest from iron labor; and
The last prayer, with exaggerated chet
And khaf sounds, uttered, and the presents are exchanged;
Then I will ink Your utterance on my arm,
And Yeshayahu's words will be inscribed upon
My flesh; for in this offering of sin,
This ancient mark of slavery, I am free, and I—
Anachnu, lo ani—am one before 
Your altar with my brothers. Then, I too may stand
In awe before You with my kin in minyan.
Grass withers, flowers fade; and still the word of God,
The word of יהוה, will stand forever.
Amén. Enroll me, LORD, among your People; write
My name upon Your holy page, and in
Your Book of Life, inscribe my soul among the dead,
The good and righteous, who endured their trials
Of shame and poverty, of fire and ravening sword,
Without despair, but prayed in steadfast faith
For Your deliverance, and in the World to Come
Shall be restored to life and their redemption.
Strengthen my heart with courage, and let Ari'el
Be ever in my thoughts as she defends
Her life and honor. Let the rashayim be cast
Alive into Sheol, but let the widows
And orphans of the Philistines be fed. Let Peace
Descend upon your Promised Land, and let
The guns fall silent, and the dusty deserts bloom
With citrus groves and cypresses for all,
For we are dust that you have molded from the Earth,
And have no being, save in You. Amén.