October
Trees wear their colors out.
Clouds gather like congregations.
It is Yom Kippur.
I have sinned the sins of omission, of broken promises, of resentment.
I have not killed or committed adultery or stolen.
Long days make way for shorter ones.
Less time to contemplate.
It is dark in the morning when I go for my walk.
When I reach the river, it repents too.
It swallows a reflection of leaves.
It has made a sanctuary for seagulls
above its polluted waters.
In autumn the forest is penitent.
The river beats her breast.
And this Yom Kippur,
I will not fast.
Marjorie Sadin, a docent at the Library of Congress, has poems in The Barefoot Review, Microw, Emerge, The Little Magazine, Jewish Women’s Literary Journal, among others, and five books of poetry in print. Her new Vision of Lucha book portrays struggle and survival, love, death, and family. It was published by Goldfish Press.