Kol Nidrei, September 2001

By Grace Schulman

All vows are cancelled now,

all words undone like chains

that snap, their lockets smashed.

All sentences cut short,

main clauses powerless

to govern their dependents

or lead the voice in prayer.

All syllables annulled.

Verbs lag. All images

envisioned by blind eyes.

All pencilled lines erased
that trembling hands composed.

My court, a grove at sundown:

Sunrays pour through stiff branches,

unearthly yet of earth;

stump of a fallen oak

whose mate once flourished green

and now looms red and yellow

like towers burst into flame.

No ark with scrolls, no benches,

no prayer-shawls, holy books

or ram's-horn. Only trees

stand witness in this silence

and autumn's humid air

blurs a bark's crevices.

As this cloud turns to vapor,

all forms circle in smoke,

all promises unravel,

all pages torn to shreds
and blown to drift in wind
whose words cannot reveal
the truth of what I've seen.