Tag Archives: ritual

November 3, 2025 · 7:30 am

Two Yahrzeit Candles

by Miriam Bassuk (Seattle, WA)

February 17th, my mother’s Yahrzeit.

I realized I had forgotten to light 

the candle for my father on February 11th.

They died years apart, my father at 62,

several months before his early retirement,

my mother at 92, a mainstay in my world. 

My father and I remained estranged.

He missed so many chances to be part 

of my life—never came to my wedding, 

my college graduation, or celebrated

the birth of our daughter, his only grandchild.

February 17th, I lit two candles chanted

the Kaddish for both parents, holy words 

in Aramaic that are deeply etched 

in every synagogue service. This ritual 

binds me to my ancestors, sends shivers 

down my spine as I reckon with shame 

at the growing distance from my father. 

There’s no accounting for the candles’ 

wax or for the duration of their burning. 

One candle with barely a flicker, 

while the other still flares two days later.

Who’s to say for which parent the candle 

burns brighter?

Miriam Bassuk’s poems have appeared in Snapdragon, Borderless, 3 Elements Review, and The Jewish Writing Project. She was one of the featured poets in WA 129 project sponsored by Tod Marshall, the Washington State poet laureate. As an avid poet, she has been charting the journey of living in these uncertain times.

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September 29, 2025 · 7:30 am

Is God at my diner?

By Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

This Rosh Hashonah

I did not go to services.

I did not pray 

with the congregation.

I did not walk 

up to the Ark.

Instead, I went for my morning coffee

at the local diner.

Was this a crisis of faith?

I don’t think so.

God sat at the next table over

watching me, making sure

I was all right.

He’s OK with me 

ordering my usual fare

while I assure Him 

my belief is constant and true,

whether I’m reading a

prayer book or a menu.

The practice of religion

may be communal,

but it is also deeply personal,

I think, as I sip my hot coffee

and know with certainty

that in the coming Yom Kippur

I will be inscribed

wherever I happen to be.

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/

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February 26, 2018 · 7:07 am

Family Gathering

by Carol Westreich Solomon (Montgomery Village, MD)

Past Pennsylvania farms, harvest-bare,
I drive to the cemetery
Where my uncle waits for my aunt
Beneath a half-empty headstone.
Next to me, Aunt Dellie rambles
About Yiddish class
Until crackling gravel announces our arrival.

“Come, so many to visit,” she says,
Scooping stones into my cupped hands.
She dips beneath the gate chain
Protecting the dead.
By height, tilt, shade,
She navigates the headstones
To those she’s come to see.

Her aunts.
Her sister.
Her father.
Her mother.
Plop go the stones, our calling cards.

Tucked among thinning headstones
Her grandmother’s grave.
Faint numbers record the length of her years
But not her strength
When a husband wanders.

Near my uncle’s grave, an alabaster headstone
Straight and proud,
Not yet buffeted by winter winds
Or chipped by mower-churned stones.
Cousin Linda.
“So young.  See all the stones.  They all came for Linda.”

“Who will come for me?”
She brushes dead grass from her husband’s headstone,
The ground uneven,
The marker leaning in.
No family gathering in granite awaits the rest of us.
Planes, schools, jobs
Have scattered us all.

Her reunion done,
Aunt Dellie washes death from her hands,
Then dips beneath the chain
Separating her from her loved ones.
Still, she invites them into my car
And they travel with us
For the rest of the day.

Carol Westreich Solomon has returned to her first love–creative writing–after exploring literature and writing with high school students in Maryland.  As the lead consultant of Carol Solomon and Associates, she previously taught writing to adults in corporations and government agencies.  Her YA novel Imagining Katherin was designated a 2016 Notable Book by the Association of Jewish Libraries.  Her work has also appeared in Lilith,  JewishFiction.net, Persimmon Tree, Poetica, Little Patuxent Review, Pen and Ink, The English Journal, and The Washington Post.

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September 20, 2010 · 7:55 am

Yom Kippur Ritual

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

Every year I assail the heavens,
lashing out at redundant ritual,
keeping the prayer book shut,
and my mind shut even tighter.
I would like to connect to Him,
but not here, oh, no, not here
in this box of old men and ancient chants.
The mournful songs loop around my neck,
and the text, when I peek, lies prostrate
on the page in supplication and obeisance,
a one-themed dirge to a devotion I do not feel.
In answer, He has already suggested
my year may not go well, a trip here,
a pain there, a sign that my fate
may have already been sealed.
However, I would like to state for the record,
I continue to bang the walls in frustration,
dying for a way in, but highly averse
to mouthing the words with the old men
who await along with me the final verdict.

The author of twelve books for young adults, Mel Glenn has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years.  Lately, he’s been writing poetry, and you can find his most recent poems in a new YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy,  edited by M. Jerry Weiss.

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