Remember the Utility of Shame

September 19, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which begins on the evening of September 20. The ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) are a time when one’s repentance may affect whether one is written into the book of life or the book of death for the coming year.

Today’s poem is a Rosh Hashanah poem about the usefulness of shame.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Remember the utility of shame,

On which in part our decency depends.

Such sentiments evolved to serve our ends,

Having given ballast to one’s name.

How apt that to ourselves we be revealed

As time pauses in between the years,

Season of incantatory tears,

Harrowed for the sins we have concealed.

Allow your shame full access to your heart,

Nor flinch from bearing witness to your part,

As only what is treated can be healed,

Here, now, while your fate is still unsealed.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/remem2.html. For more poems for Rosh Hashanah, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/yomkippurpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Rosh Hashanah

September 18: Righteousness Ought Not Be for One’s Self

September 19: Remember the Utility of Shame