Lulav, etrog and suddenly a turned ankle.

Yesterday

As I ran through Wadworth Woods,

Just before a fantastical, head over heels slip on the mud,

triggered my Apple fall alarm >Rod would you like to call an ambulance?<

(logistics of the woodland obviated this possibility)

And twisted my ankle,

Limping to the nearest village

I smelled

My childhood.

The odour

Of the damp Sukkah

at Giffnock

Shul.

Yenta

Perfume

combined

with the body odours of ageing Survivors.

After the Saturday morning service

We would congregate

In the Glaswegian tabernacle,

With soft apples, bananas and oranges hanging from rafters

As Reverend Levy

Would shake his lulav and etrog,

Careful not to break the pitom.

Archaeologists argue that the absence of evidence for King David and Solomon in Iron Age Israel was their use of tents.

A nomadic people

Like the Bedouin of today,

They wouldn’t stay long in one place.

And this, matches the biological record –

We were wanderers.

Hunters and gatherers

Before we settled in towns and cities,

In the good old days,

Five or six hours of foraging or hunting

Then rest.

Rest and be done.

The Wandering Jew.

Jews have wandered the planet, expulsion followed by expulsion,

Blood libels and global conspiracies at their heels.

And I inhaled

The damp

of mud and mid-autumn leaf litter,

puddles

And fallen conkers

And yes, it will soon be winter.