Elul, Day 25- כ"ה באלול

Dear Elul Writers,

A few days ago, one of you sent me a poem that I had never read before; a real gem. It centers, fittingly, on the words ‘I forgive you.’ The repetition feels almost like a mantra. The poem, written by Dilruba Ahmed, is entitled Phase One. 

For leaving the fridge open
last night, I forgive you.
For conjuring white curtains
instead of living your life.

For the seedlings that wilt, now,
in tiny pots, I forgive you.
For saying no first
but yes as an afterthought.

I forgive you for hideous visions
after childbirth, brought on by loss
of sleep. And when the baby woke
repeatedly, for your silent rebuke

in the dark, “What’s your beef?”
I forgive your letting vines
overtake the garden. For fearing
your own propensity to love.

For losing, again, your bag
en route from San Francisco;
for the equally heedless drive back
on the caffeine-fueled return.

I forgive you for leaving
windows open in rain
and soaking library books
again. For putting forth

only revisions of yourself,
with punctuation worked over,
instead of the disordered truth,
I forgive you. For singing mostly

when the shower drowns
your voice. For so admiring
the drummer you failed to hear
the drum. In forgotten tin cans,

may forgiveness gather. Pooling
in gutters. Gushing from pipes.
A great steady rain of olives
from branches, relieved

of cruelty and petty meanness.
With it, a flurry of wings, thirteen
gray pigeons. Ointment reserved
for healers and prophets. I forgive you.

I forgive you. For feeling awkward
and nervous without reason.
For bearing Keats’s empty vessel
with such calm you worried

you had, perhaps, no moral
center at all. For treating your mother
with contempt when she deserved
compassion. I forgive you. I forgive

you. I forgive you. For growing
a capacity for love that is great
but matched only, perhaps,
by your loneliness. For being unable

to forgive yourself first so you
could then forgive others and
at last find a way to become
the love that you want in this world.

Prompt

We have the tendency during the holiday season to focus on the work of asking forgiveness. Today, on the 24th of Elul, I invite you to, instead, focus on the equally challenging work of granting forgiveness. Offering your forgiveness can be an empowering act and an unburdening act. Perhaps if we collectively repeat the words “I forgive you” then the forgiveness will gather, “Pooling / in gutters. Gushing from pipes.” Perhaps all this poetry isn’t your thing—I forgive you.

Laila tov,
Jordan