A Blessing for Kislev – the Coming of the Light

When the cunning wind of Kislev

sneaks under your door, 

wrap yourself in trust. Watch

the early waning moon descend.

Retreat into the blackness.  

There is nothing else you can do.

Nothing else you can do.

Now, in the womb

of the cosmos, restless, waiting,

deep into the ninth month,

you dream of the birth of

Light.

It is a long, dark night.   

When Light arrives,

Oh, how she brightens a room.

Oh, how thankful you are. 

Candles are lit.  

Songs are sung. Stories are

spun. Latkes sizzle in oil.

Children scramble for gelt,

gamble it away with

dreidels made of cruel, shiny plastic

or sometimes wood – a gift from

the maple tree, meticulously carved, sanded 

and weighted into a work of 

functional art.

Light lingers, lengthens.  

She opens her arms, 

stretches subtly 

beyond the next new moon

two days into the month of Tevet.

Hers is the only festival 

empowered to span two moons.

For eight days Light cries

out to you, assures you

it is safe now 

to bring your whole self out, 

out from the shadows. 

You whirl and shimmer, 

alive in the blue and gold glow 

of the flames, a swirl of neon. 

The ancestors breathe within you.

You melt onto the earth

sleek as dripping wax

in a pattern

elegant, surprising, mesmerizing.

Countenance shines

upon your face, upon all the faces.  

Again, you can see.

Again, you are seen.

Blaze Adrman  is an interspiritual minister, compassionate listener, mom, grandmother, lover of poetry and life at 80–and a member of Lilith’s inaugural New 40 cohort.