Kol Nidrei: September 2001

All vows are cancelled now,

Listen to the poet Grace Schulman read Kol Nidrei: September 2001. (2:05 min)

all words undone like chains
that snap, their lockets smashed.
All sentences cut short,

main clauses powerless
to govern their dependents
or lead the voice in prayer.
All syllables annulled.

Verbs lag. All images
envisioned by blind eyes.
All pencilled lines erased
that trembling hands composed.

My court, a grove at sundown:
Sunrays pour through stiff branches,
unearthly yet of earth;
stump of a fallen oak

whose mate once flourished green
and now looms red and yellow
like towers burst into flame.
No ark with scrolls, no benches,

no prayer-shawls, holy books
or ram's-horn. Only trees
stand witness in this silence
and autumn's humid air

blurs a bark's crevices.
As this cloud turns to vapor,
all forms circle in smoke,
all promises unravel,

all pages torn to shreds
and blown to drift in wind
whose words cannot reveal
the truth of what I've seen.