Rosh Hashanah in Morocco, A Dream
Ink bleeds into the grain of the page,
a dark vein against the quiet afternoon.
Outside the shuttered windows, Casablanca breathes—
salt spray from the Atlantic tangling
with the scent of roasting almonds and sweet dates.
I sit in the cool shadow of my grandfather’s house,
weaving fictions, pinning words to a desk,
while the courtyard hums with the weight of the holy day.
It is the head of the year.
In the kitchen, my grandmother’s hands,
still fragrant with rosewater and crushed anise,
have already arranged the apples,
already poured the thick amber honey into silver bowls.
The family gathers in the atrium,
a living mosaic of silk scarves and crisp white linen,
murmuring in warm currents of Judeo-Arabic and French,
preparing to seek the sanctuary of the synagogue.
I tell them I will stay behind.
My unfinished story demands its own birth,
a heavy tether to this wooden chair
while they go to taste the myriad pomegranate seeds
and wait for the ram’s horn to split the Moroccan dusk.
The heavy front door clicks shut.
Silence settles over the glazed tiles,
the intricate blue zellige stars suddenly cold beneath my bare feet.
Then, the ink stops flowing.
A sudden phantom note—the imagined cry of a shofar,
or perhaps just the wind rushing off the Corniche—
strikes the hollow of my chest.
Why invent a world on flat paper
when a living covenant waits in the streets?
A lineage carved in brass and ancient wood,
a chorus of chanting voices I have never allowed myself to witness.
The engine idles in the narrow alleyway.
Panic, hot and beautiful, floods my throat.
I abandon the pen to the blotter.
I become a sudden storm of motion,
stumbling across the woven Berber rug,
wrestling stiff leather shoes onto untied feet,
fabric twisting in the frantic rush to belong.
I burst through the wrought-iron gate into the fading, golden sun,
breathless, grasping the handle of the waiting car,
throwing myself into the crowded, warm leather beside my grandfather—
the fictions left behind on a silent desk,
racing toward the chanting hall,
ready to write myself into the Book of Life.
