Taschlikh

Here's a poem for all you sinners. It's the Jewish New Year now, when we do taschlikh--we throw lint or bread crumbs from our pockets into a body of water to symbolize letting go of our sins. 

TASCHLIKH

By the wizened roots of a massive oak

under the juniper tree

I cast my sins into the creek

scraping the lint from my pocket,

a mass of gritty regrets

tangled together, lodging under my nails.

I sat on the muddy bank

not caring about my skirt.

Blue gentians twisted in the oak roots,

clover bent under my boots.

One bit of foil was clumped in with my sins.

The lint swished downstream,

but the tiny glint of foil,

flashing in the sun, hooked

on a mass of gingko leaves too great

to be moved by mere water.

Some sins are too beautiful

to ever let go.

from Nine Kinds of Wrong, JKPublishing