Rosh Hashanah

My husband and I hike a trail in Jasper National Park,
linger at lakes the color of fresh celery.

The Athabasca mountains unfold across a pewter sky,
brood beneath a mantle of clouds.
A charm of magpies punctuate the sky.

I’m not at my synagogue, not chanting
Unetaneh Tokef: who shall live and who shall die.

A river sweeps aquamarine through the valley.
Elk wander across the road, the male crowned with curved antlers.
Lodgepole pines flow like water while birch trees glow
a ghostly white, souls returned from the afterlife.

I am not listening to the shofar with its call to prayer,
not chanting the Aleinu to praise God.

I miss my mother.
I want to believe her confusion has lifted,
that she sits with toast and jam, book opened.
I want to believe she is whole,
brain raveled back to comprehension.

Birds in flight stir wind,
the air smells fresh and hopeful.

Grief lightens in a hint of sun.
I lay it down among small pink flowers.

________

Valerie Bacharach’s chapbook, Fireweed, was published in August 2018 by Main Street Rag. Her writing has appeared or will appear in the following publications: Pittsburgh Poetry Review, The Tishman Review, Topology Magazine, Poetica, Uppagus, Voices from the Attic, The Ekphrastic Review, Talking/Writing, Rogue Agent, and Vox Viola.