Goodbye, Miriam.

Goodbye Miriam.

Alone

I sit beside this grave

Hollowed out and filled in without the benefit of song and remembrance.

Just so much sand and dust and bone slipping from between my quivering fingers.

The hot wind kisses my cheek and runs invisible fingers through my hair.

In the oven-baked air I can hear the fading rattle of so many timbrels.

Around me dance the ghosts of celebratory praise.

I close my watering eyes and can see, further back,

 a young girl following a floating basket from behind a screen of riverside reeds.

A testament of sisterly love

even if later she will feel the need to question her brother’s authority.

(I have to smile. Ah, siblings…should we or God have expected any less?)

That desert wind now tickles my ear: Why are you still here? Look around - your tribe has moved on! With their every step the promised land grows larger on the horizon. Do you really want to be left behind?

No…but neither do I want to leave this spot of sand and bones in a desert of sand and bones,

to perhaps one day become a single barely-glanced-at, seven word sentence

destined to be swallowed whole in an endless tome.

The wind dries my tears and carries away my words: “!זכרונם לברכה”

I feel I can stand now, with a prayer on the edge of my parchment lips

that the blessings of her memory shall never overwhelm

all that I need to carry.