Celtic roots shaped my spirit,
but my German Palatine ancestors
are coiled somewhere in my soul.
I wonder if a rabbi grandfather
or kohenet grandmother
incised my heart with their love of words.
I go searching for a name.
Myrtle answers me from her place
in the shadows of hidden lineage.
Myrtle, someone tucked you into the marriage wreath
without telling us your name.
You were a colorful sprig of scented greenery
hidden between roses and baby’s breath,
content to be overlooked.
You knew it would be safer for your daughters
to deny their lineage.
Every year you have bloomed
without being recognized or blessed,
generation after generation,
always ignored, until the granddaughter
of a hundred granddaughters, came seeking a name
for roots that tangle her heart
with words of prophets and stories of women
who danced at the new moon and crossed rivers
with tambourines and hidden goddesses.
She called, “Come, Grandmother,
give me a name for this stirring
that hears you in scripture,
telling your story under the words of the Patriarchs.
Come, Grandmother Myrtle, call the angels.
Sing the words of blessing from the shadows:
Hashkavenu Adonai, Elohenu leshalom.” *
*Hebrew invocation of the angels: “Lay us down, Adonai, our God, in peace.”
