IMPROVISATION #213
THE LIGHT OF RAANAN

Some of your work
lost in the heat of fires
of 2017
yet the light of your art
only now seen darkly
in a blackened snapshot
will emerge from the ashes
as an urgent tragedy of Job
in his seasons of waiting
was for a taught lesson
in Sabbath reading
after your art is shown
being humanly universal
in figurative paintings
like the "Lion of Judah"
now faintly icy blue
yellowish and charred
who lives in rehearsal
and in your drawings
cannot be roped off
for those who love Zion
from your carvings
in a repository of tapestries
not drained of color
for your art in memory
will return again
in editorial honor
at your pictorial space
to do over your pain
from your genius part,
you will be robed
like the Joseph, the patriarch
not robbed for your coat
of many striped colors
as from fine linen over
the shapes of your canvas
reminding us in a memorial
of the saintly sages
and insurgent predecessors
of rabbis, dreamers
comedian, or folk schemers
from the pale
with stories of fiddler’s acts
also  were robbed of our history
by the Shoah,
or seen in a rock of ages
here before Chanukah
upon a remnant
of long time Torah saints
known for their book of acts
who remain for the task
of remembrance
from unsung choirs
of more than forty years
in a voicing chorus
of a liturgy and litany
in your memoir of abstracts.