Wonder Rabbi - A Sonnet Poem by Lewis Eron

It is great to be someone’s hero, sincere praise but no context.
To receive accolades and kisses and hearing I’m the best
From a room where only the most the alert sleep and the rest
Might wiggle or stare or clap or cry honestly with no pretext
Or intent beyond joining a hymn poorly sung and feeling perplexed
By memories of other synagogues, other rabbis on the Day of Rest
Or even by God’s strange presence. Proclaimed the greatest
By the least, the deaf, the blind, the sick who read the holy text
Displayed, unrolled without the vowels or letters or even words
Through my undisciplined voice and once heard interpreted
Theologically by me goes where it goes to their undiscriminating ears
That find equal pleasure from parrots as from the returning songbirds
Happy to find simplicity in what I find too complected
So that even the atheist is content to be here after all these years.