The menorah burns
dawn arrives ahead of time.
Split the husk from the grain,
in a quiet, ruthless grace
Are you of your own design, or mine?
Within the cave
carobs and shadows
become your bread.
On days of gentle ruin –
when kings collapse like abandoned statues,
we rose before daybreak to go to the wells
they too awaken to the howl of the east wind,
rise into the breath of clay jars,
dissolve into wind-shaped silence.
And now the hour gathers itself,
to loosen what still binds the soul.
To draw out the blood
from what still remembers life.
_________
Jerusalem-born and Cape Town-based, Michal Bar-Or Karro is a poet and writer whose work moves between the personal and the metaphysical. Her Hebrew poetry collections have been supported by the Rabinovich Foundation and Israel’s Ministry of Culture and Sports. Her poetry explores devotion, memory, and inner voices. Writing across English and Hebrew, she engages with Jewish and mystical texts from unexpected angles.