Free Yom Kippur as Manifest in an Approaching Dorsal Fin by Adam Byrn Tritt Page A

one rushed to the windows.
    But after a while I walked to the front win-
    dow to look out and see the moon rising. I
    looked up to see it over the trees, bright and
    beautiful. I stood, staring through the
    window.
    And what was this? In the high left corner,
    small small, a crack. Visible if one looked but
    nothing terribly noticeable. Still, a crack. We
    had done it. We broke the window. Not shat-
    tered, not busted, but broken nonetheless. In
    the end, I’m glad it was small. The perfect
    result in all ways. We did what we set out to
    do but the window could stay, as it had, for
    nearly a century. We could still see the grass
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    The Harmony of Broken Glass
    wave, convoluted, from the thickened bot-
    tom. The glass, as originally placed, would
    continue on. Of that, too, I was glad.
    Because, if you get very close, if you listen
    very carefully and very near, on a quiet, quiet
    day, you can hear the recorded hundred
    years—the rumbling cars and trucks, shoes
    on raised wood floors, thunder and pelting
    rain, laughter, the harmony in the broken
    glass.
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    Fifty Years
    Had I been born fifty years earlier
    I would sit in a café in Paris,
    Trade wit, find work writing copy
    And critique, adventure in the arts
    and love,
    Drink dark coffee and absinthe.
    I would meet people in occluded rooms,
    Crowded stations, and hush
    Listen carefully, I will only say this once, Pass small slips with single names,
    Hide men in my attic,
    Wonder about tomorrow.
    Had I been born fifty years earlier
    I would say the proper brucha
    Each morning, listen to my papa,
    Go to yeshiva, study Talmud,
    Marry whom I was told.
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    Adam Byrn Tritt
    I would look toward the steppes
    And one day see the horses,
    My small town in smoke,
    My footprints and cart tracks behind
    me,
    Hope for a ticket of passage,
    Wonder about tomorrow.
    Had I been born fifty years earlier
    I would go to school
    In the town with everyone else,
    Shop in the markets,
    Consider myself a citizen.
    I would one day hear the crashing
    windows,
    See the walls built, the paint flow,
    The armbands and the army trucks,
    Wonder what we had done,
    Avoid the uniforms,
    Wonder about tomorrow.
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    Yahrzeit
    This, today, August 29th, 2010, is the
    one-year anniversary of my mother’s
    death. Yahrzeit .
    I could not write this. But I could say this.
    I dictated it and a friend, a good friend, for
    who else would do such a thing, typed it while
    I talked. He also made what edits and proofs
    were needed. He did this to save me the pain
    of a careful reading. Thanks, Craig.
    I read it anyway.
    I do not say this is what happened. What
    is here is truth but may not be fact. It is what I remember from two days that are hard to
    remember. I have added things as I recall
    them. Still, maybe I got something wrong.
    Maybe I got something backward. Maybe I
    made a mistake. Maybe someone will be mad.
    Maybe they’ll get over it. Maybe they won’t.
    It doesn’t matter.
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    Adam Byrn Tritt
    •
    My brother called me that Thursday and told
    me my mother was in the hospital, or that
    she was going into the hospital, I actually
    don’t quite remember which one. I said I
    would try to get down the next week or so,
    and he said he thought it was important I get
    down there in the next day and so. I left the
    next morning.
    My mother had Parkinson’s Disease, had it
    for about fifteen years. For the last two years
    she’d had trouble speaking, and she seemed
    more and more trapped. She had brain sur-
    gery, which really didn’t work for much more
    than two or three weeks at a time. I think she
    hadn’t walked in probably a good year.
    So I called my daughter and asked Sef if I
    could stay with overnight at her place. She
    was living in Deerfield Beach and my mother
    was in the hospital in Coral Springs, about
    twenty minutes away. I also asked if she
    would meet me at the hospital. And she said
    of course she would. So I drive down and I
    got there around 11, and Sef met me