Poems By Aaron Snyder

Absence

Life too brief; grief too long.

In sense of absence

Oh, so strong.

Balaam in Gilead

How Godly are thy tenets, Oh Jacob

How goodly thy intents, Oh Israel.

Intense are those places where you dwell,

Rest content with thy intense portents.

Am Chai

Surely our shared survival is surreal

as our mingled diasporic histories reveal:

Time and chance can, it seems, contrive

to help some mangled remnants heal

whilst elsewhere once-lost anusim revive.

There is an edict time and chance cannot repeal:

Israel as a people will survive.

Thus "Israel lives" is more than merely real.

Aaron Snyder was a professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin until his retirement in 2003. He and his late wife Ede (that's the correct spelling) made aliyah in 2021 to join their two daughters in Tel Aviv. He continues to dabble in philosophy but nowadays devotes more time to dabbling in poetry.