Hanukkah 2022
When the finches fly through the crown of his voice,
in the sun-breathing animal hum,
they expend in the flood all they hold in their blood
to arrive at the fire to become
where the dandelions grow through the lava and stone,
where the salt cuts a dragon through rock,
the spiraling pins that he slides as he spins
in the grooves of the wind they unlock.
When the lines in the bark of the trees start to run,
and the fire travels fast through his feet,
if deciduous boughs are the secret of youth
with the shuddering of points as they meet,
the frenetic divine is revealed by a cow,
and his ambient iris will creep.
Burning wild through the alien stalks, he is fire,
and the lake is a beast that can’t sleep.
Hanukkah 2023
When the curious eyes of the night birds behold
all the greens of the leaves in her eyes,
in the way she contains what she can’t quite hold onto,
their enlightenment buzzing like flies.
It’s the face that’s revealed when the clouds and the moon,
to create with a creature’s intent
what the underworld’s piercing resplendence inspires,
and the meaning is more than was meant.
But the grin that she sees on the ghost is a frown,
the totality striking their chests
like a hand is descending from up in the clouds,
and the colors are coming to crests.
Since she’s taking the loving they’re sharing she’s taking
just this once when the stars as they are.
And the winter erased her vermillion scar.
There is death. There is death. And its star.
Hanukkah 2024
If the raindrops’ cascading at random inscribes
to become in his bones like a king,
his desire’s a moon hinging west, inward star
of the tangled celestial ring.
Light the sparks from within, constellations are keys.
In a nightgown of yellowing leaves,
in her catacombs, starlight reborn in the spine,
under sun, under shade, she believes.
How unlikely they’re wrapping their limbs in their limbs,
where the snakes are a vibrating knot.
When the moon is as white as the sky in the cold,
they can’t love any less than a lot.
Then the rungs are reflecting the brass in his eye.
There is nothing but presence, the deep,
and the songs that are falling into her mouth
of the deer and his breathtaking leap.
Michael Barach & Brandi George have been writing together since 2008. These poems are part of a series for which they write one poem every year on Hanukkah. Poems from their first collaborative book of poems and paintings, Deus Absconditus and Love Letters from Outer Space (Kernpunkt Press, 2025), have appeared in Denver Quarterly, 32 poems, Black Warrior Review, Seneca Review, and elsewhere. Paintings have been featured at Renditions Gallery in Tallahassee and Art Lab Gallery in Naples, as well as in Cutthroat and Denver Quarterly. In addition to their holiday poems, they are working on a poetic reinterpretation of the story of Esther.