Poetry Thursday: Four Questions

Four Questions

by Shuli Lamden
from Another Desert: Jewish Poetry of New Mexico

Now that I am grown, now

that my brother presides over Seder in his own home,

now that my seven-year-old nephew has outgrown the asking

and coaches his little sister in the questions, word by word—

Why is tonight different from all other nights?
How is this meal different from all other meals?

—only now do I know

not simply answers, but the ways

that our questions are answered,

with still more questions:

How is tonight the same as all other nights like this?
How is this meal the same as all other meals like this?

Dad explains to his grandson

how over and over we sit down to this meal,

how his own grandfather once asked the questions,

then heard them asked.

We begin with memory, tell stories, and sing

of our ancestors and of God who redeems us.

We are always enslaved,

and we are always being liberated.

While the sun burns its way from night to night,

the Red Sea touches shore, then recedes.

[via Sherman Asher Publishing. Image via Miriam's Cup]