Your old heart was tired,

Having seen battlefields

And uniforms stiff with young blood,

A heart worn by worry in long lean years.

Blood laden with care is heavy,

A stone pushed uphill,

One beat at a time.

Your old heart fled to a flower,

Then to a circumpolar star,

Where it throbs leisurely

And remembers.

Your wife wove your new heart,

The way she braids challah for the Sabbath,

And it is as tender and sustaining.

Your daughters and their husbands,

Your son and his wife

Give you to drink sweet wine,

Dark and red,

To pulse in your breast,

That you may bestow your blessing.

April 11^th, 2008