From Sinai to the Shtetl, and Back Again

This invitation, from our old friend Lil Blum:
FROM SINAI TO THE SHTETL AND BEYOND: Where Is Home for the Jewish Writer?
Does writing root you in a "home" land?
Do you have a portable shtetl, or did you leave it in Bubbie's kitchen?
How do themes in your writing link you to the Jewish community from Sinai to the shtetl?
Are you linked to the Yiddish writers of our past or the Jewish writers of today?
What is your mameloshen? How does it speak in your writing?
Who are you channelling?

Janie wrote wonderfully on the topic, and here is my attempt: (you need to know that the Hebrew word "HaMakom", literally, "the place", is actually used as one of the many names for God. HaMakom is the name for God used in a house of mourning. You can look for reasons. It could be that at a time of total dissolution of all reality, the only sure thing is this place, right here.)

Une Canadienne errante,
I sit on the shores of Zion
and weep for Lake Ontario.
Zeh lo hamakom
the woman says rudely
when I try to see a doctor.
You're not in the right place.
Zeh lo HaMakom.
In other lands,
Hebrew is the holy tongue.
Here it can be rude.
Here
HaMakom is any kind of a place.
It can mean you came to the wrong desk,
and they don't help you find the right one.
In other lands,
Hebrew is a holy tongue.
and HaMakom is God.
And here Hebrew is for dust and for ashes,
for bitter and for sweet,
for rudely turning you away,
when you don't know this place,
and they don't remember
to be kind to the newcomer,
or to gather the recent wanderers
home.
And then you stop at the corner
of Shaul HaMelech and the Baal Shem Tov,
for a cup of tea with a cousin
whose father was a brother
of your own Zaide,
back in the shtetl,
though you've been Canadian, these years,
and she grew up in Uruguay.
And your pelephone rings,
with dash from the son
of one more of Zaide's
brothers:
this one came in the early years,
brave and ready,
to not feel a welcome,
and still,
to build the kibbutzim.
And the "pele" in pelephone
means miracles and wonders,
like a prayer you learned for Chanuka,
and a war here is named after a dreidl,
and the woman who was rude,
wishes you refuah shleimah
because we are both daughters
of a more ancient Sarah.
And then you walk along the beach,
and waves and sun
connect you to ancient voices,
and as you shake off
the sands of the sea
from between your toes,
you remember a promise to Abraham.
You leave the beach,
under a sign saying
Tzeitchem L'Shalom
as if here they knew
that all of us are angels.