by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)
Nun.
Gimel.
Hey.
Shin.
The four faces of the dreidel,
a game learned in childhood,
a metaphor for adults.
Take all, lose everything
put in two, take half.
Fate turns on a spin,
fortunes flip on a dime,
a fifty-fifty chance for the dime,
a one-in-four shot for the dreidel.
Thus, the questions I’ve wrestled with
ever since childhood:
is it luck, circumstance, or fate,
or are we all part of God’s plan?
Does He spin the dreidel for us?
Does He decide which side turns up?
Or are we subject to twirling all our lives
and watching where we land?
Nun.
Gimel.
Hey.
Shin.
Mel Glenn, the author of twelve books for young adults, is working on a poetry book about the pandemic tentatively titled Pandemic, Poetry, and People. He has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years. You can find his most recent poems in the YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy, edited by M. Jerry Weiss. If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/
The Jewish Writing Project 