My Yom Kippur prayer - poem

Judaism, Summer, 1997 by Leora B. Smith

Heed the sound of the shofar: Bless my family with this New Year.

O God your voice makes me tremble, I am whispering Bless my family with this happy New Year.

Heed the sound of the shofar: Let me tremble, not with fear Bless my family with this healthy New Year.

O God your voice trembles in my ear, When that T'keyah G'dolah sounds this year Please bless my family this New Year.

LEORA B. SMITH, whose poems appeared in the Fall 1994 and Spring 1996 issues, received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in cellular physiology (1992). She has studied poetry with Dan Pagis and Yehuda Amichai, and her poetry has been included in an anthology, Without a Single Answer: Poems on Contemporary Israel, edited by Elaine Starkman and Leah Schweitzer (1990). She has published several papers in professional biological journals, and teaches hands-on science to teachers in Chicago, where she lives with her husband and two children.