In the ancient Gothic church
Mother Mary whispers here;
Her stony face looks out at me,
blank eyes that shed a granite tear:
There beneath her warming cloak
a mass of children huddle there,
seeking shelter and maternal love —
their fears and pains that she will bear
are lit by a sea of candlelight
that lifts cares hence, way up high,
borne aloft away from here,
to dissipate in distant skies

Watching Ridle Baku takes me back
To cobblestone streets
Strangers speaking in mysterious, angry accents
Asking, “bist du Amerikaner?”
Ja.
A few blocks separated us,
A chain and barbed wire fence
And MP’s wielding machine guns
But on Saturday’s my parents took me out to the market
And I wonder if we ever passed by each other
Two children in the same city
The city was yours, is yours.
I was just a tenant.
Standing in ancient shadows.
I never knew Arizona didn’t have castles
Until I left, and I missed them.
I got a Mainz 05 scarf when I was 18.
A year before I watched you play for them,
And score against Leipzig.
And the city cheered.
Your city cheered.
And all at once I realized how much I loved Mainz
And how badly I wanted to call Mainz home.
How badly I wanted the city I grew up in to feel like home.

i remember my grandfather
white beard 'n saintly,
soft of countenance,
smiling faintly

his grandpa passed early,
he, an unborn babe -
but his grandfather saw his,
Grand Rebbe of Ropshits.

So goes back a chain,
passing years, time immemorial
Rashi, from Rabbi o' Mainz
from line of Judaic kings' inaugural
Up Time's jugular veins
to royalty, King David's arboreal

So, surely, will come a time
generations hence'll form a line
of men and women so sublime
and i amongst them?

It gives me fright,
makes me ponder
i have no right
to stand, to maunder,
'mongst such august
gold stardust,
a link betwixt
new souls untold
and G-d-transfixed
prophets of old

and yet, as scion,
i'm more than a tie
between earlier aeon
of angels on high

of great lions
attached to the Sky
giants of Zion
who rode on high

and offspring hence
of future ages
babes of innocence
and learned sages

i am to serve
as loyal transmitter
a royal nerve
of heavenly glitter