by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)
I freely admit I skate
on the surface of Judaism,
content to glide through life
with minimum knowledge of
Jewish lore and wisdom below.
I do not possess the right tools
to fish for deeper meanings
among the school of books
that explores the depths of
man and meaning.
But it does raise a question:
Am I less of a Jew because
I skim over the pages
of books I don’t understand?
I don’t think, while skating,
I am capable of falling into
the cracks of knowledge
in the pages of sacred scrolls
that live below the surface,
out of my flailing reach.
Can a man be righteous
without the study of religion,
with only the trappings of it?
Can he be a good man, even
if he decides to keep on skating?
In my own fashion,
with my own skates,
and at my own pace,
I will continue my dialogue
with my religion while
humming a skater’s waltz.
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 