I want to lie. I want to say they didn’t off that blue sky.
That yesterday morning when it bloomed cobalt again, I didn’t
feel a thing, not even a tweak, just hooray for the last rays of summer.

Hey, that blue September Manhattan sky has always had a double edge.
You know what I mean. Schoolstart and the baseball suddenly serious
just when you couldn’t go — and then
grown up at work cooped indoors on perfect Beach days. Looking out.
That topless blue sky like a rapture that knocks you out
if you look too long.

The girls still in their summer dresses and New York (more than ever)
a tall man’s quick step. And…and I can’t lie…yesterday and every time I look
at that blue sky, I want to look away. Because the blue and that awful day
are seared in me and on me as one interlocking brand. It hurts big time
and I want to bellow and swear it doesn’t.

So, what can I do but honor my pain?
Fact is there was always pain aplenty in that
September blue. I wasn’t at Antietam — but
I was in Munich — weren’t you too?
When they smithereened the only truce the world believed in.

That canopy has always covered our world without comment.
Without us it could be any color. The beauty is there but so is the other.
Yeah, from now on when I look, I’ll try and ride the cobalt out for all its worth,
which to my complete surprise on 9/11/2012, is not less — but more.

__________________________________

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My friend Donna had died almost two years ago, and I still missed her so much.

I came to really know Donna as she was dying. Nothing more could be done — no more surgeries, no more drugs, no more maybe cures.

I went to visit with Donna because it seemed the right thing to do. I had the time while my toddler son was in preschool. I felt good doing this — giving my time to another person. But from the very first visit, I was the one who received. Donna’s gifts to me were her friendship, her courage and her love of life.

In church, I had to muffle a sob, and my shoulders starting shaking. I prayed for Donna and for the family she left behind. I prayed a little for me, too.

We knelt, and then we stood again and prayed as a community: “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the words and I shall be healed . . . ”

I closed my eyes and as I spoke these last words I felt enveloped in a comforting warmth, like an embrace. I felt lifted up, and it was as if the whole church fell away from me. Suddenly my pain was gone. I felt healed of my sorrow.

When I opened my eyes beautiful music played and voices were lifted in song. My tears had stopped flowing. I smiled at my husband and at my son and followed them to receive Holy Communion.

Shekhinah Ballerina

With all your thrones and scepters you may rule the world for a while, But take hold of Shekhinah and you will rule the world forever. ~From The Wisdom of Solomon (50 BCE) written by an unknown Jewish sage living in Alexandria.

The Shekhinah lay on Her Queen-sized bed listening to Flower Drum Song’s I Enjoy Being A Girl. She’d always loved Rodgers and Hammerstein. She spun off the bed and whirled around the Holy Chamber singing, ”I’m strictly a female female. And my future I hope will be. In the arms of a brave and he-male. Who-o-o-o enjoys being a guy. Having a girl. Li-i-ike. Me-e-e-e!” She kicked high, pique turned, pirouetted and grande jeted around the cavernous hall. To get her in the mood, she wore a lovely pink tutu on the outside of her robe.

Why couldn’t she dance and sing for Her job? Why couldn’t Her job be that simple? The World was complex. Gehenna was complex. Even the Holy of Holies was complex. All the connections, every action, reaction and absence of action, all connected like dominoes waiting to fall and falling at the same time. Like numberless spider webs all woven together, continuously interweaving and multiplying. Layer upon layer upon layer. Creation was always creating and destruction always destroying. It was all too much. Her sigh filled the room sounding more like a moan.

Why did Her material being feel so heavy now all the time? She stroked a piece of red silk strewn across her bed. Why did she feel so lacking in energy? She found Herself wanting to isolate all the time now. What was up with that? She’d always been such a social God. Now, she couldn’t bear company except for Her two angels, Varode and Kochol. And even they annoyed her much of the time. She couldn’t bear to hear all the wishes and prayers, the cries, the demands, the appeals from the living beings in the World and the countless souls who had passed over. She yawned covering Her mouth and felt listless. She didn’t know what to do with Herself.

She looked at the small piles of paper everywhere. Piles of never ending complaints and requests: “I need food.” “I can’t pay my rent.” “Please don’t let my mother die of cancer.” “I shop too much. Help me stop.” “My husband doesn’t love me.” “My wife doesn’t want to have sex any more.” Who was She, Dr. Phil? And the latest: “Help me kill all the Jews in Israel. And everywhere else! Allah be praised.” “Help me vote into office only Christian Republican presidents.” “Help me kill all the abortion doctors!” “Help me convert all the gays to be straight. Or barring that, help me get rid of them somehow, Praise Jesus!”

These people- were they ever going to grow up? Were they kidding? How could they think a Jewish God or any god would help them with that? How could they really think they each had the only path and the direct ear of God? What kind of meshugenah god would grant these ugly, destructive, venomous prayers?

She flopped on the bed, causing the covers to billow up around her. She grabbed the remote and punched the button for the music to stop. Thank Heaven most musicals including this one had at least one character that sang a sad song, one character that didn’t get her prayers answered and wishes fulfilled. In Flower Drum Song, it was the little seamstress who loved the First Son of the wealthy family. Her song was about ships passing in the night or something akin to that. At least that one sad song gave Shekhinah a chance to experience the way She felt all the time now. Lonely and joyless.

She rolled off the bed and floated over to the acres of paper requests she just couldn’t seem to get to. Mounds of them. She just couldn’t read them anymore, let alone attend to them and grant the prayers.

Why couldn’t people just be happy? Or if not happy, why couldn’t they be at peace with their misery, accepting what could not be changed? Did they have to whine and kvetch constantly to Her? She had created this amazing world for people to live in, so beautiful it was. All they had to do was live in it, be kind to each other and be happy. But no, all they did was kvetch.

She kicked the piles of small notes from all the souls until they flew throughout the gigantic space. She could feel something explode within.

“OUT,” she cried. “I want them out.” Tears poured down the Shekhinah’s face, a violent waterfall of tears that dug rivulets into her skin from the force of the onslaught.

Varode, the Pink Angel, appeared from a sliver of spatial dimension. She was concerned about Shekhinah’s outburst.  “What is it, Your High Ness? What do you want out?”

“These,” the Shekhinah said, her passion growing. “I want every prayer, desire, request and demand gone. No more. Don’t bring me any more. I refuse to deal with another prayer.” She kicked the pieces again viciously. They flew up and cascaded over Her long, shining tresses. They settled like large snow flakes, blotting out Her hair, robes, and feet, piling around Her in a mound, a paper snow goddess.

“But this is your job. There’s no one else to do it but you,” Varode said. “Everyone relies on you.”

The Shekhinah seemed not to hear Varode. “And get the Mega-Vac and suck these up. Suck ‘em up and spit ‘em out somewhere I can’t see them anymore.”

Varode’s face reflected the horror she felt. “But…but…”

“I sent those two ghosts down to earth. Let them deal with the prayers. Let them help the people. I’m all helped out.”

Pale and shaken, Varode turned to carry out Shekhinah’s commands.

“And bring me a deck of cards. You know how to play poker?”

“Poker?”

“You heard me.”

Varode shook her head no.

“Black Jack?”

“No, Unutterable One. I’m sorry,” she said, backing out of the chamber, head bowed. She halted and turned back to the Shekhinah. “I’m not certain but I think Kochol, the Blue Angel, might know something about those sorts of throwing lots games.”

“Then get him and the cards,” Shekhinah said, shaking the prayers off Her, like a dog with fleas. “But first, the Mega-Vac.”

Phoenix of the Sequoias interlaced his branch tips with Scarlett’s, tapped his roots in rhythm to the song the forest howled, and stirred the wind. The trees of Redwood Forest swayed to the north and south with each gust of wind. They whipped their branches in wide circles with each moan. Phoenix loved dark hours during the festival. Dancing would continue until sunrise, when all trees would settle into comfortable positions, relax in the sun, and make sweet syrup, an age old sequoia treat.

Strange vibrations made soil shimmy against Phoenix’s roots. “Stop! That tickles.”

Scarlett snatched away her branch. “I didn’t do anything.”

Golden needles resting on the forest floor stood upright as if they were quills on a threatened porcupine. Every single needle on Phoenix pointed skyward too. “What the—”

That’s when he saw the moon with its entourage. The sandy soil of Redwood Forest scurried from Phoenix’s root cluster like worker ants rushing food to the queen. Helpless to resist the lunar force Phoenix rocketed to the sky. The magnetic circuit captured Phoenix and pulled him west.

Phoenix drilled one root down as far into the earth’s crust as he could. Maybe he could use it to pull himself back to his location-of-germination. Up, up, up he went. The tethered root stretched as thin as a silk worm thread. As Phoenix soared from Redwood Forest his heartwood thumped harder than a beaver tail on a mud dam.

Scarlett…. How did she hang on? He couldn’t live without Scarlett. After all, they’d sprouted the same spring, grown side by side in the nursery. Their roots coiled together, connecting them no matter how far Phoenix’s powers allowed him to jump from his location-of-germination.

This isn’t the first time he’d jumped. He’d been banished for accidentally starting a forest fire and he’d hopped from one place to another, seeking honor as a key to return home. Along the way, he’d battled a three-headed termite army, lumberjacks, and an orchard of cloned apple trees out for revenge. Phoenix had reclaimed his location-of-germination only after saving Redwood Forest from a devastating drought.

A rush of frigid vapors jolted Phoenix’s focus to his new surroundings. He’d never jumped over the ocean before. Having no place to touch down and rest made his bark clatter with fear. They soared over tiny islands sprinkled like autumn leaves in the ocean below.

Beyond the moon, sunlight perched on a black hole, rays stretched wide. Phoenix focused his needles toward the glow, trying to decipher the signal. Nothing.

Each ring Phoenix gained in his trunk-circumference opened new knowledge of the world. He was another ring older since the last time he soared through the skies. He’d never given much thought to the bright flecks fixed in the sky. Tonight, the sun, moon, planets, and stars swirled around him.

Phoenix tapped a branch against the diamond shaped tree knot on his trunk. “Come on. Help me understand what they’re trying to tell me!”

Six cosmic orbs whistled, whooshed, and spiraled around Phoenix, guiding him through the galaxy. The celestial ballet danced around him.

Phoenix’s tree knot vibrated. Ping! Phoenix suddenly understood the planetary lingo.

The Moon swooped in so close the raised rim of a crater brushed against Phoenix’s soft needles. “Follow us.”

A small planet raced circles around Phoenix. “I’m Mercury. You need to deliver a message? I’m your orb!”

The brightest globe floated near and spoke in a voice like a mountain lion purr. “Venus here, darling. Normally I go for beautiful plants with large, lush flowers. But with stars twinkling around your strong limbs – irresistible.”

A cardinal-colored planet butted against Phoenix’s root ball as it rounded the bend. “One wrong move, buddy, and I’ll knock you into that black hole. Nobody crosses Mars.”

Phoenix leaked chlorophyll. “Yes, sir.”

Another cosmic sphere accelerated straight toward Phoenix, hissing. “Don’t worry about Mars. He must answer to me!”

Phoenix clenched every twig, needle, and branch, bracing for collision when the hissing sphere passed through him like a manure-laced windstorm.

A ringed planet teetered over. “Don’t be scared. Jupiter might be our king, but he’s full of gas. I’m Saturn. I’ll show you exactly where you need to be.”

Phoenix swayed, a little woozy from the stink of gaseous Jupiter. “Thanks, Saturn. Can you please tell me where we’re going?”

Saturn spun its rings. “To your namesake constellation.”

Phoenix was about to ask if constellation meant prison, when the one root clinging to home stretched to a wisp and snapped. He flailed, trying to catch a branch on the loose end as he floated free in the atmosphere. “No! Now I’ll never get back to Scarlett!”

The moon rotated away from the sun, transforming to crescent. “No worries, my friend. Once we arrive, you’ll absorb the stars’ navigational powers.”

Drawn to lunar magnetism, Phoenix trusted the moon. As he soared through the stratosphere, past the Milky Way, Phoenix’s roots streaked behind him like a comet’s tail.

Saturn’s rings screeched to a halt while the planet kept rotating, causing Saturn to hover next to a cluster of stars. “Here we are!”

The moon sidled close to Phoenix. “It’s a heavenly retreat at your disposal.”

Mercury zoomed laps so fast that persistence of vision left an outline connecting the stars. Saturn’s rings sounded like a honking flock of geese as it revved back up. “Phoenix, those are the boundaries of your constellation. They run from that orange giant over there to the eclipsing binary star system there, and then to the barred spiral galaxy in the distance.”

Venus shined down on Phoenix like a spotlight. “Head over there, handsome. Let’s see how you look in your holiday constellation.”

Phoenix’s sap raced through his trunk as the force pulled him toward the constellation. When he reached the boundary, every star within his territory twinkled in sync. Every worry of Scarlett and the others in Redwood Forest melted away. Phoenix swayed his branches and crown in gentle circles as he took in the view of the Earth. “It’s beautiful.”

The moon and her entourage orbited Phoenix. “I knew you’d see it. We needed to show you the broader view, a few steps beyond forest for the trees.”

Phoenix gazed at the distant blue marble. A supercharge surged through his trunk and he could see the details of the globe. “Home looks so different from up here.”

The moon bounced up and down in agreement. “That’s the point, Phoenix. The stars tell us you’re destined to change the course of treestory. Access to a cosmic view of the Earth will aid you. From here on in, you just think of where you wish to go and you’ll transport.”

Phoenix focused on the west coast of North America. “You mean I can come and go from here to home anytime I want?”

The moon changed her phase to gibbous. “Anyplace from here, not just home. You come up here, pinpoint your destination, and go.”

Mars puffed out all red and stern. “You thinkin’ of where you want to go?”

Phoenix’s bark tightened around his wood. “Yes, sir.”

“Brace yourself!” Mars butted Phoenix into the black hole.

“Ahhhh!!!!”