The flowers, though, are a deep cadmium yellow and bathe the table in their saturate of light

Deep cadmium yellow is the color I need today, the return to exile in these deep yellow flowers

Their blooms may be wilting but their smell persists in my palate

Not a sweet smell but something turmeric-like that quiets the appetite for intoxicants

The rabbi spoke of a vital capacity for understanding, but what do I understand

not the flag of poetry, not the flag of country or the insane black MIA flag still flying above the statehouse

though I love how the wind slaps them in a simulacrum of freedom

Today as every day I return to exile, the past flooding forward, the future receding

I turn from Jerusalem as a plant turns toward a sun-drenched window

I sit at my table, lift my spoon, and watch the quick and halt going about their business

The dogs of spring are tugging at their leashes

I pet the cat, who wants nothing else of me

I touch the mezuzah and ask the Shekhinah to bless me with her breath of pollen yellow

Let this not be a good day for fear or the fires that destroy villages

This is the day that the cosmos made, let us rejoice and