Azrael Visitations

Abstract

Azrael Visitations* Jane Seitel (bio) Let me atone for all my sins, iniquities, and transgressions, that I have committed before you. —traditional Jewish deathbed confessional Hyenas graze peaceful as fallow deer. Under an olive bough, a girl searches for small signs,a speckled beetle, the silk wrap of a luna moth. She recovers a red stone, turns it, cups it cool against her ear like a conch. Now a sleeping asp stirs, enters the night, hissing— hanefesh, hanefesh.I see him sloughing scales & spent brille. Vision blurs. Does the dream grasp the soul’s reckoning? In a land without ground, without sky, how shall I know? The pliancy of youth dries to brittle reed. In a charmer’s basket, the girlwizens, a swaddling for Azrael. Under cover, Miriam squats, her brother’s silence falling upon her, leprous white. I awaken to wet linens, mouth sour, tasting the bite of bitter herbs. North winds howl through a window I left open,a steely sky announces October. Today is Simchat Torah. Water flows over my body. The last parsha must be read. Woe to me: I am lost Isaiah 6:5 Vacuous womb. My fist knuckles my chest. I am a furrowing, a lily whose petals decades ago letgo. The gorge of my body mourns Rachel, [End Page 99] I follow Miriam into a land of fata morganas. I soothe her open sores. I stumble off, a sin offering.Miriam heals, returns to the tent of the women. The shadow of a red-tailed kite flies low; five-fingered wing tips flex skyward. In the desert morningthere are lives to be lost & carrion for the taking. Could I as a woman hear the sweet voice of the God’s beloved, lingering sad as the harp’s plucked note: Leftto pulse into silence. & could I as a woman intuit the pardes in the lines of my palm? Azrael will come—the beauty of my common name erased. Out of mist, he will return meto obscurity. Could I as a woman see his splendor, taste ineffable sweetness in his open mouth? [End Page 100] Jane Seitel Jane Seitel is an expressive arts therapist and teacher (Lesley University, M.Ed) who received an MFA in poetry from Drew University in 2011. Her poetry has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Florida Review, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Bridges, Midstream, Split This Rock, Minerva Rising, and Lilith, among others. Seitel received the 2010 Charlotte Newberger Prize and honorable mentions in 2014 and 2015 in Voices Israel Reuben Rose Competition. She has two wonderful grown-up children and loves various quadrupeds. 4jseitel@gmail.com Notes * Azrael is the angel of death according to Hebrew Biblical tradition. Simchat Torah is the holiday when the last portion of the Torah (Books of Moses) is read, and then the cycle begins anew, reading from Chapter I of Genesis. Parsha is a selected reading from the Torah. Pardes is the study of esoteric Judiaism (Kabbala) which is reserved for men. Copyright © 2016 The Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Inc.