The Arizal’s Mikvah

-Yehoshua November
August 23, 2010

To walk, just before the Sabbath descends,

a borrowed towel over your shoulder,

down the green hill

that leads to the cemetery of cabalists,

to pass through the narrow lanes between the gravestones

and hesitate by the Arizal’s grave,

to sense the souls of his students

hovering over his gravestone,

to know for certain that he too hovers there,

only a little higher,

rocking back and forth, like a flame.

To walk a few yards east

and enter the mouth of the Arizal’s cave,

to slowly remove your clothes in the heavy air

and descend into the cold spring,

to leave this world for a moment,

to know one day

all those you have forsaken

will forgive you.

Yehoshua November's work has appeared in The Sun, The Forward, Prairie Schooner, Margie, and a number of other publications. His poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and selected as the winner of Prairie Schooner's Bernice Slote Award. God's Optimism, his first book of poems, won the 2010 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award. It's now available at http://www.mainstreetrag.com/YNovember.html