Photo: Ofir Asif
There are whispers
In the Ether,
Toxic stories meant
For loss of hope.
They are phantoms.
Do not listen as
Malignant news
Grabs scope.
Find instead
The breath of valor.
Seek the children,
Help them cope.
Hold up truth,
Unfurl your kindness
To withstand
Slithery slopes.
For The Daily Post
He reached into his pocket and rummaged around. “I’ve brought something to show you,” he said, eyes searching mine. “But it’s a secret …”
“Oh?” I offered.
“Well, sort of,” he shrugged as an uncertain smile worked its way into his cheeks. “I took them to school … but I didn’t tell anyone … because we’re not allowed to … The teacher woulda’ taken them away and other kids maybe woulda’ told her or asked to see them and then she’d know …”
I hiked my eyes up and nodded my expectation.
The grin grew but it still held a sheen of sad.
He pulled his fist out of his pocket and turned it so the back of his hand rested on the table, then ceremoniously uncurled his fingers.
Four grains of rice in tiny vials, strung onto a keychain ring.
“They have names on them,” he said reverently.
I squinted and reached for a magnifying glass. Handed him one.
Our heads met over the small nest of palm and he mouthed the words, more sigh than voice. “Fee, Fi, Fo and Fum.”
A quartet recently eaten not by a giant smelling the blood of an English man but by a feline with a swishing tail who had knocked the fishbowl over and left not one golden scale behind.
For The Daily Post
Photo: Inbar Asif
Be a little foreign
To yourself.
Let corners of not-yet-seen
Within
Take a tour
Inside your mind.
Embrace
The unfamiliar parts of
You
Till they become
Another kind of
Home.
For The Daily Post
Photo: Amitai Asif
We all want to be cherished,
To be known by our name.
But like flowers in meadows,
We’re alike, not the same.
It does not do to lump us
Identical, in one frame.
For like leaves of a tree,
We’re alike, not the same.
Varied hopes, many wishes,
Different dreams of acclaim.
Like the shells on a shore,
We’re alike, not the same.
Each of us has the power,
To bring hope or bring shame.
Pick just one of us too early,
And the world’s never the same.
For The Daily Post
Photo: Na’ama Yehuda
Hold on close
To the hope
Even if
It is a bit
Tired.
So no matter the noise
Distraction desires,
Hope remains warmed
In soul
Where truth never
Expires.
For The Daily Post
Photo: Na’ama Yehuda
I’d rather be
As I am
Just in a world
Less fraught
With wrong
And sorrow.
And yet,
If in my druthers
Things were not
Exactly as they are
In both joy and dismay,
What would make me
Be exactly
As I am
Today?
For The Daily Post
Photo: Amitai Asif
It is in your grasp
To take hold
To absorb
Offered light
Life’s rewrite.
It’s within your soul
To recall
To be bold
In the hollowed out space
Of your mind
To breathe deep
To grow whole.
For The Daily Post
Assay the cost of
Apathetic heads
Or cheeks that turn
Again
The other way.
Know the high price of
Silence that
Lets massacre
Take hold for yet
Another day.
Do not give in.
Do not let up.
Step forth
And raise your voice
In truth
So it rings clear
Above the fray.
For The Daily Post
Photo: Ilya Rashap
Conjure hope
From odd bits
Of despair.
Recall the magic
Of compassion
Summoned from thin air.
Remember how small light
Brightens
Everywhere.
For The Daily Post
Photo: Amitai Asif
“Can animals be naked?” he asked, his little forehead creased in perplexed concentration.
“Naked how?” I responded. “Animals don’t usually wear clothes. People may dress their dogs with coats or booties if its raining or snowing, but even that only sometimes.”
He waved me off. “I’m not talking about dogs, even.”
I smiled. The kindergartener’s contenance was a smaller version of adolescents’ exasperation at the ‘know-nothing-adults’ they are somehow expected to live with.
“Oh, okay.” I conceded, “I guess I misunderstood. What did you mean, then?”
“Other things. Like, um … snakes.”
“Snakes?!” I repeated.
“Yeah.” He moved his head up and down for emphasis. “Because I think maybe a snake took his clothes off and ran away and now he’s naked.”
Comprehension slithered in to lift my confusion. “Was this when you went to visit your grandma in Arizona?”
He nodded again. “It looked like a snake but it was only snake clothes.”
I grinned. “I think you saw a snake skin shed! How cool! But don’t worry, it still has skin on its body. You see, when a snake’s skin is too small for it, it grows new skin underneath and then it wriggles out of the old skin and sheds it inside out like a sock.”
The little boy narrowed his eyes and inspected my expression to see if I was perhaps pulling his leg. What he saw in my face must’ve reassured him.
“Good,” he said. “Because I didn’t want everyone to see his privates.”
For The Daily Post
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