A Poem for the High Holy Days

This is the 2nd in a series of high holy days poems. I hope you read it and consider this poem in your thoughts of reflection as we approach Rosh Hashana this Wednesday evening.
L'shana Tova Tikatevu
May you  be written in the book of life.

Chapter Two Ecclesiastes

I am all the ages of human kind

Voices and wisdom of the years

Speaking through the languages of man

I once inhabited

And have since forgotten

Because what I only

See is what I am

And that dear friend

Is the folly of my life.

Was work my wisdom or

The jobs I had

The friends who

Surrounded me

And their rancor

Or my own indulgence

Which set me on a crooked pathway:

At times lost

To the truth

And to what end?

Now I search for the smallest things

The morsels of insight

I desire and no longer

Shall I wear the crown

A diadem of a good name

Or the garments of pride

Which glistened with the

Wisdom I thought was mine.

My bones ache

And I walk haltingly

My eyes dim

And I hear sparingly

My back is curved

And I stretch hesitantly

But my appetite

For truth does not abate

For I have learned

That the service

I perform next

To the altar of confession

Has become the sacrifice

I offer to the Holy One

And the work of my conscience

Is my day of atonement

Where the fast of my soul

Restores the years I once lost

Which I gather in the harvest of this lifetime.