Dayenu – Jacqueline Jules

It’s enough. We sing at Passover. Dayenu.
Tapping hands on the table in rhythm.

If the miracles had ended when the Red Sea split.
If there’d been no manna, no Sinai, no Temple.
Dayenu. Enough. To have gotten out of Egypt.
We sing every year in chorus, 15 verses
listing satisfaction, without request for more.

Dayenu. Your bloodwork is the same, not worse.

Dayenu. Your hair did not fall out.

Dayenu. We took a walk by the pond at sunset.
You weren’t too tired for dinner.

Dayenu. We sing now for as long as we can.

 

Jacqueline Jules is the author of Manna in the Morning (Kelsay Books, 2021) and Itzhak Perlman’s Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press. Her poetry has appeared in over 100 publications including One Art, Jewish Literary Journal, Poetica, and Jewish Women’s Literary Journal. Visit her online at www.jacquelinejules.com

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