"Kol Nidre" weeps to me in my dead father's voice,
who blameless, blamed himself, and not his Maker,
for promises unkept, and sins he'd not committed,
in a lethal world not made for gentle scholars,
who survived the Shoah, bewildered and ashamed,
who struggled to love his God, the God who saved,
as with fear and trembling he dared to challenge
the God of his Fathers, the God who had not saved.
*Annette Keen is a freelance writer in upstate New York.
