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Wayne-Daniel Berard teaches English and Humanities at Nichols College in Dudley, MA. An adoptee and former Franciscan seminarian, his birth-search led him to find and embrace his Jewishness. Wayne-Daniel is a Peace Chaplain, an interfaith clergy person, and a member of B’nai Or of Boston. He has published widely in both poetry and prose, and is the co-founding editor of Soul-Lit, an online journal of spiritual poetry. He lives in Mansfield, MA with his wife, The Lovely Christine.

Finding Out You’re Jewish

Wayne-Daniel Berard

It’s like being thrown down a very deep well

only not by your brothers, as you don’t

have any anymore which doesn’t

surprise you as you didn’t have

any in the first place, not really. You

recognize it from the depths up;

always you’d lived here, although you

didn’t know it and neither did anyone

who found your vision too direct, too

unsquirmingly real, too centered

on the light circling at the top while

everyone else felt buried alive. You

didn’t know why you didn’t, or

why you knew rain would come

eventually and raise you up and out

so you’d better not get too used to

this narrowness, and even then that

wasn’t the end of it; that open valve

of light you’d stared up at day after

counted day, 1,3,6, suddenly became

all there was of 7 and when they all

said, “run, idiot, you’re free,” you

didn’t, didn’t want to, just had to

stop in the wholeness of that day’s sky

even until it darkened and

something everything smelled

of cinnamon, and a braid of shooting

stars dipped into the deep

and sizzled and you sang from

the bottom of your well which

you had been thrown down into

once again but not by non-brothers,

but by (you think maybe) un-Absence

who insisted you be the same and

learning you were this you rejoiced

and once more lifted up your eyes.

— Wayne-Daniel Berard

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