Between Capernaum and Safad
- Between Capernaum and Safad
tall purple candles in the hills north of the Sea of Galilee—thistle—
my Canadian friend, whose husband worked in the garment industry—tells me, was used
to brush lint from fabric. To buy a dry thistle (in Toronto) expensive, she said.
And I wonder if the plant were gathered here, how many dead would it cost to make clean
new raiment? Would the ancient holy mystics have bled that royal color into their lives or
could they have found a way around these hills attaining the greater heights they sought. [End Page 47]
How long have we fought, we good people of The Book—to find and keep our home.
When shall the shining clothes be ours, free of debris?
B.E. Kahn's poems have appeared in Harrisburg Review, Earth's Daughters, The Schuylkill Valley Journal, California Quarterly, Mad Poets Review and other journals. Among various awards, she received first prize for poetry at the Philadelphia Writers Conference, a Pennsylvania Council of the Arts Grant to support teaching poetry in public schools, and a Pew Grant for Studies in The Humanities. She is a member of Or Hadash, a Reconstructionist Congregation, Fort Washington, PA.
