Shoshana Friedman

The Ingathering of Exiles

Bring me to You, dear One!

I miss you.

I long for you.

My parts have been scattered off to sea

driftwood on the waves.

Now I wash up to shore, broken

Yet smoothed,

ready to return to You.

Holy beach comber

Find me.

Find me here, polished and waiting,

perhaps some edges still sharp,

cuts and nicks and a barnacle or two.

Your lost treasure.

I ache to feel the thud of myself

as I fall into Your basket.

I pant to be brought home and rinsed

by Your tender calloused hands

in the deep kitchen sink of Your cottage

and held to Your heart as You sit by Your fire.

Shoshana is a rabbinical student at Hebrew College, studying for the year in Jerusalem. She also composes songs, and is a member of the Hearts and Noses Hospital Clown Troupe in Boston. This poem is an interpretive version of the prayer for the ingathering of exiles, which is part of the daily Jewish liturgy.