poetry

Today, I Was.

Today, I was.

When I am doing,

I am whole:

I am propelling,

I am hurrying,

I am moving,

I am shining.

When I am still,

I only am.

When my hands are empty,

When my soul is hurting,

When the world is dark,

When the world is silent,

G-d is beckoning.

He is calling me back to being,

He is handing me a gift

To return.

To just be.

I believe I need to shine,

But perhaps,

I need to just be.

If I am waning,

Am I really here?

Who am I?

If I am not doing,

What am I here for?

For the givers,

for the doers,

this is sacred work.

My worth lies not in what I can give.

My worth is here all along,

In the waxing and the waning.  

The sun is the show stopper,

The main event,

Yet the sun is burning itself,

To remain alive.

The sun can only give.

The moon can give.

The moon can receive.

The moon can be seen.

The moon can simply exist.

The moon waxes,

And it wanes.

The moon doesn’t need to shine

to be worthy

of its place in the sky.

I am moon.

I am not always whole

But I am always here. 

I am holy.

For I am human.

Inspired by listening to two “Human and Holy” podcasts back to back, the first with Chana Margulies and the second with Rivky Kaplan, on a bus ride back to Brooklyn.

–

Etti Krinsky

Photo by Luke Stackpoole on Unsplash

A Sunflower Grows In Brooklyn

A single sunflower

Stands in the wind,

Bending, but never breaking,

On a corner in Brooklyn.

Surrounded by concrete,

It stands in defiance

Of every reason

Why it shouldn’t be.

From my window

Across the street

I see a sunflower

One single sunflower

And it whispers to me

Of hope,

Of belief,

Of bravery.

It questions not

If it belongs,

If its time has passed,

If others believe in it.

It knows its purpose

Lives on

And so it too,

Lives on.

This single sunflower,

Across from my bedroom window,

In a building in Brooklyn,

Has persevered,

Has been pushed to the brink,

Has survived floodwaters

And harsh winds,

Yet it stands.

Blooming.

Perhaps stronger

Than it ever has

Before.

–

Etti Krinsky

Photo by Conner Baker on Unsplash

This Garden

I’ve been dabbling
in positivity

seeing the sun rays
and the way the rain
waters the grass
and snow creates hills
to sled down.

I’ve been dabbling
in focusing
on the good

and knowing everything happens
for a reason
and every reason
is truly good
deep down good
all-around good.

Positivity sometimes feels
like playing pretend

dressing up
making something look
different than it actually is
but I’m learning
that the truth
is the opposite.

This world is good,
it is,
even though there is so much pain,
the people,
they are good.

I spend so much time
thinking about how
messed up this world is
how many things are wrong
how many systems are crumbling
it starts to feel
like a thousand bricks are falling
and I’m trying to stop it
by holding out my hands.

But what if
one brick
is all I need to catch

One step
today
One step
tomorrow

Because this world is worth saving
these people are worth loving
there is no such thing
as surrender
when you’re talking about
a world
that is a garden.

-Etti Krinsky

Photo by Florian GIORGIO on Unsplash

Quarantine Poetry

It’s been 5 months…
…and I’m still here.

Over the last months, emotions have been kind of raw. All there, all at once. The kind of emotions that write poetry, but poetry that is so rough around the edges that if shared, it would be like walking around without clothes on. Too personal. Too much me. At least for now.

I wrote a poem a few months ago that I do feel okay with sharing.

I have been blessed, beyond blessed, to have listening ears and shoulders to lean on when I’ve been at my lowest during this time.

And I’ve been blessed to be able to provide that listening ear to others.

Quarantine has been rough on everyone, some more than others, and this poem is not addressed to one person specifically, but rather to a few people. But my message to all of them is the same, and for that reason, the message is the same to anyone who has been hurting recently.

For anyone who feels alone – I am listening. (For real. Feel free to reach out).

For you, I share:

Socially Distanced Pain

When I read your messages, all I want to do is
climb through my phone
and sit with you in your pain.
I want to get you a glass of water,
hand you a tissue, and hug you tight,
for as long as you need.
I want to be there.
For you and with you.
Yet, I am stuck, miles away,
behind a glass screen.
No amount of messages,
no amount of FaceTimes
can make up for the physical distance that sits between us.
I sit in my bed, on late nights, and early mornings,
and I read your words and listen to your voice over voice notes,
sometimes cracking with tears.
Life is hard right now.
Life was always hard, and now life is especially hard.
For you, it is possibly unbearably hard.
And I sit here wondering if I can possibly open my soul enough
to hold your pain
when my life has been so filled with blessings.
I wish to rush ahead of you with stones
and pave the way for you,
to protect your toes from getting stubbed.
I wish to paint a scene that makes life feel safe for you.
I wish to straighten everything up, organize your things,
and hand you the key to all that is still a mystery to you.
I wish to hand you the words that are written on your heart,
in a way in which as you read them,
you can fall in love with yourself the same way
so many around you already have.
But all of this is out of reach.
All I can give you is my small words of comfort,
my ear if you can tell it is listening from so far away.
I cannot give you a hug.
I cannot give you the water, or the tissue.
I can only give you my time, and my love, wrapped in a message.
And I’m tired of it.
I’m tired of having to love you from afar,
of listening from a distance,
of sending you virtual hugs and heart emojis that say so little.
But for now,
it’s all I have,
and all I can give,
and I hope it comes to you,
as the slightest bit of sunshine,
on the cloudiest day.

Photo by Raphiell Alfaridzy on Unsplash

–

Etti Krinsky

Overnight: A Poem

I haven’t had much to say

Because words feel useless
In a world that has become so small

Overnight.

I haven’t had much to say
Because for some, the ground is crumbling,
And I’m technically okay,
Happy, even,
While some people’s lives
Are turning to ash,

Overnight.

I haven’t had much to say,
Because these days I am afraid of my phone,
In the morning, I don’t like to look,
At who and what we lost

Overnight.

I haven’t had much to say,
Because whenever the phone rings,
My heart drops,
Wondering if we’re about to hear
About a nightmare
That developed

Overnight.

I haven’t had much to say,
As I quarantine with family
That I love
And that love me,
and I think of those who are alone
Or worse, with those they hate,
Or worse, with those they
Fear.
And I pray
That somehow
All of this gets resolved
Overnight.
–
Etti Krinsky

Photo by Rosie Kerr on Unsplash

Powerless.

Powerless.

That is how I feel as I whisper psalms.
Hands tied behind my back,
As I beg G-d to chill, the, freak, out.
Exhausted.
That is how I feel in my every bone,
Heavy with the weight of the tears
That refuse to come out.
I’m aching; aching; aching.
My stomach is in knots,
Where will the next fracture in our earth occur?
Who will be the next to break?
How do we live in a world so filled to the brim with pain?
I pray; I pray; I pray.
17/52.

Some Weeks

Some weeks are for looking inward,

For disappearing into the pages in a book,
For dancing like nobody is watching,
For long walks with friends,
For hard-work-project-deadlines,
For cooking with family,
For laughing with tears in your eyes,
For bus rides you thought you’d write on,
For real tears that bubble up from a tired soul,
For talking with your 4 year old nephew about how bodies work,
For weird dreams that make you think,
For nostalgia and hope,
For forgetting to write a blog post but writing one just as the week ends,
Once again.
13/52.

Memory Lane

A walk down memory lane
can be filled with pot holes
and thorny bushes.
Sometimes,
I close my eyes,
trying to avoid the things that hurt me.
But,
when you walk down memory lane,
guided by one of the people
who was there with you,
someone who
recognizes the same cracks in the road,
and can remind you of your voice,
and who you used to be,
the walk
becomes filled with beauty.
You can remember the flowers,
and the sound of silence,
becomes sweet,
rather than scary,
and the walk down memory lane,
with those special souls,
shows you the length of how far you’ve walked,
how far you’ve come
and how much you’ve grown.

12/52.

Photo by Simon Rae on Unsplash

This Week

This week,

a cashier complimented me, after months of my complaining that New York cashiers walk around as if the world slapped them – which in fact, in a way, it does, through entitled customers. A cashier complimented me, and the sun was shining, and I was surprised as I said thank you, taking my change, but receiving much more.

This week,

i sat on the subway with my sister, as we speculated about other passengers, their life stories, their destinations, and I realized they might be looking at us, and for a moment, I was burning with desire to know what they saw. Two girls, on the subway, heading towards an adventure that would last a day, with flowers; and coffee; and too much dinner.

This week,

i boarded a bus alone, traveling by myself for the first time in months, among strangers, my head bent as I avoided eye contact, hoping for my own seat, finally winning, and then wondering why someone who loves connection finds isolation so dangerously sweet.

This week,

as i waited for my second bus, sleep heavy on my eyes, I observed two homeless women, having set up camp in a bus station in a city, but as they prepared for bed, they laughed together like schoolgirls, perhaps denying the truth of their middle aged homelessness, perhaps not denying anything at all.

This week,

i drove for the first time in a while, preferring the quiet NH streets to the wild ones in NYC, and my windows were down, and my music was loud, and I was all alone, and I was happy.

This week,

I laughed with a cashier, back in my hometown, and as I paid her I realized that people in this part of the world didn’t look like they were slapped, and that was pretty cool, and that being alone is great, but connection is all that sweeter.

6/52.

It’s Midnight

 

at midnight, the world quiets

the flowers close

a baby cries

a wolf howls, maybe,

in the distance.

 

someone turns in her bed

her mind awake

with millions of colors

and millions of dreams

a future calls, maybe,

in the distance.

 

someone lays in her bed

thinking about 6am

and the to-do list

and the endless journey

there seems to be

to tomorrow.

 

It’s midnight,

and everything is dark,

and the future

is hard to see.

 

5/52.

Photo by nrd on Unsplash