The Beginnings of Ritual
When God intrudes from within A story, as in the ordering Of unleavened bread, bitter Herbs, and the roasted lamb, When God’s telling-about the Seder Delays the Angel of Death And preserves a memory, we Are not free and free: In transience of turning, Like the force at which a body Can rise no higher, at which It momentarily Resists before falling Into song later on. There’s A resolving layeredness In Dayeinu, "It would have been Enough," repeating Die-die-einu Each turn at Passover season, As if this refrain orders Our gratitude to God For saving us once Again, as if this ending Needs to be kept up. 
Robert Manaster has published poetry in various journals including Many Mountains Moving, Judaism, International Poetry Review, Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion, Kerem, European Judaism and The Literary Review. Recently, he was chosen as the recipient of the Dorothy Norton Clay Poetry Fellowship for the Mary Anderson Center.
All images by Jamie Solock