I do not see her growing old
With lids that limp and weigh with years,
Yet not imprisoned within the bound confines of her many volumes
She sparks, she lights, she sings
Songs of God-intoxicated psalmists
Who lifted their hearts to a divine Father
A presence they felt with equal immediacy
To that which she feels today – but I see only her past and future …
I do not see her growing old.

I do not hear her weakening voice
With words still sieging, capturing space and listeners as the Seas in Exodus
None hardened into dogma because of her years
Not congealed into structured philosophic borders
She weaves, recounts and ricochets
With tales that enliven days buffeted by hardship, bound by dignity
She has to tell the story one more time … in the moment
Be sovereign in her detachment from an unreliable posterity
But I hear only her past and present
I do not see her growing old

I do not feel her senescent hands
With veins that poke through pools of spotted creases
Instruments that have swung the scythe of destiny
From war to peace to prophecy
Molding her line, inculcating the generation to come
She caresses, she weaves, she fulfills
With touches that promise eternity and
Embraces that would unharden the hearts of pharoahs
So much warmth, with midrash in each touch
The candor of angels that counter the fear of Heaven
Which could at any moment intervene and break the storyline
Replacing the heat of the here and now
With cold, numbing denouement
But I feel only her presence now
I do not see her growing old.