A child born deaf heard their mother's voice for the first time
and a father kissed his youngest child goodbye a few feet from the altar.
A young man fell in love with the woman he'll spend the rest of his life with;
a girl-woman realized that she let her first love go for all the wrong reasons
and didn't know that she'd gotten it right,

and the managers of several teams in several leagues thought about next season
and how it would be different, if only because time is passing
and the future will always be frosted in hope until it burns with present fire,
while a baby died in its father's arms and the father wept in the mother's,
and a big brother played peek-a-boo for the first time in his life
with the little sister he told God he didn't want, and neither of them were the child
who got a puppy for the first time and learned the warmth of unconditional love
wrapped in a wriggling body incapable of pausing its motion,

and Justice was not silenced despite three frequency megaphones screaming on,
and the newspapers got only some of it right - no news there - and someone, somewhere
was put to death on the same day that someone found Jesus Christ,
and I fell in love with the world and the sky and the way that darkness can only be
a precursor of light, the four beats of silence in the score of my life,
and today is Friday, which means that - this week in the world -

Shabbat Shalom.