//creative//
Fall 2021
Fall 2021
Shira Michaeli
Ecclesiastes Goes West
A time to live and a time to die
A time to labor or cease from labor
A time for hellos and others for goodbyes
To remember, to forget, to give and to hoard
I don’t think in life we are granted many answers
Or apologies
Or appreciations
for our magnificent minuscule minds to manage
Tufted grass shivers in the wind
Green-grey hills forgotten by winter’s whiney widening gyre of frigid
I had not realized the way the city pulsated
Pulverizing positivity to pulp
The way I just needed a quiet moment
The still small voice is harder to hear
near the cacophony of sounds as teeth ground
to the symphony of imposters syndrome
We are too afraid of unlearning
Stomachs churning
On lexapro and ritalin
Lonesome, sexual, and cinnamon
coffees too sweet for our teeth
Cut some time away for sleep
Add a sliver of expectations
A whole slice for stress
Our pie aspires to an irrational infinite
The validation of superiority
our valiant project
Dive
Deep into apologetics
We are the unforgivables of our own rhetoric
Compassion past the point of exhaustion
You are the river I get lost in
Carpe Diem is a threat, what if
I am not making the most of my wild & precious
Terrified to remember to
Unpeel every vertebrae
From where they have rusted in hunch
Un-permanent my ideology of perpetual crunch
There is time for
I have time for
I need to make time for a whole lot of nothing
For context, to process, to forgive my forgoing
Breathe deep on well kept, abandoned grass
There is enough time to relax
Not untie each knot
Abandon incomplete circles
It is not on me to finish the job
I have to exempt myself from starting,
and starting, and starting
Before I surface at 21, lost where to find catharsis
There is a time for work, a time for rest
To rip and sew, to weep and to laugh
There is not time for all things
But to say enough is to do my best
A time to live and a time to die
A time to labor or cease from labor
A time for hellos and others for goodbyes
To remember, to forget, to give and to hoard
I don’t think in life we are granted many answers
Or apologies
Or appreciations
for our magnificent minuscule minds to manage
Tufted grass shivers in the wind
Green-grey hills forgotten by winter’s whiney widening gyre of frigid
I had not realized the way the city pulsated
Pulverizing positivity to pulp
The way I just needed a quiet moment
The still small voice is harder to hear
near the cacophony of sounds as teeth ground
to the symphony of imposters syndrome
We are too afraid of unlearning
Stomachs churning
On lexapro and ritalin
Lonesome, sexual, and cinnamon
coffees too sweet for our teeth
Cut some time away for sleep
Add a sliver of expectations
A whole slice for stress
Our pie aspires to an irrational infinite
The validation of superiority
our valiant project
Dive
Deep into apologetics
We are the unforgivables of our own rhetoric
Compassion past the point of exhaustion
You are the river I get lost in
Carpe Diem is a threat, what if
I am not making the most of my wild & precious
Terrified to remember to
Unpeel every vertebrae
From where they have rusted in hunch
Un-permanent my ideology of perpetual crunch
There is time for
I have time for
I need to make time for a whole lot of nothing
For context, to process, to forgive my forgoing
Breathe deep on well kept, abandoned grass
There is enough time to relax
Not untie each knot
Abandon incomplete circles
It is not on me to finish the job
I have to exempt myself from starting,
and starting, and starting
Before I surface at 21, lost where to find catharsis
There is a time for work, a time for rest
To rip and sew, to weep and to laugh
There is not time for all things
But to say enough is to do my best
//SHIRA MICHAELI is a sophomore in the School of General Studies and the Jewish Theological Seminary. She can be reached at [email protected].