Sunday, April 27, 2008



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Dear Readers,

Much more of my writings can be more easily read at ...


www.authorsden.com/alandbusch1


I encourage you to visit that site and it's real easy to leave a written response to any of the pieces.

Sincerely,

Alan D. Busch

Wednesday, April 23, 2008



Where authors and readers come together!




All that Remains Is Oftentimes More Than You Think

All that Remains ...

All that remains number but few
a mangled scooter for one ....
hidden from view but for all to see
the havoc one mistake had done.

For years on tree bark did knelt
supporting its maple trunk, broadly hewn.
Fearful was I that if memory felt
would be cast to the wind if strewn.

When he rode it home that first night ...
a "giant" astride a motor ride small.
So incongruous the contrast did seem,
what lay before that us would soon befall.

To part with this relic,
would not I his memory betray?
An anguished decision, but I let it go
lest inadvertantly I myself slay.

Unlike the verdant green grass,
that withers so soon fast.
Stubborn remembrance defiantly stay
the course of time long last.


Alan D. Busch
April 2008

Monday, April 21, 2008



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I Am Lonely For You, Forever

(Reflections that evening of Ben's death ...)

Drawn back to my house
wherein her plaintive cries I did hear
wept my heart for Ben's mom
with whom I could be neither nor near.

In desperate near madness, oh ... the blackest of nights
joylessly my family did weep
so sad when I would have prefered
together with whom I might sleep.

Our child we loved him so much in common
my mind unrestrained in darkness did roam …
this reality unimaginable, especially stark
my house … no longer my home.

In memory’s flight I remember this well
when ended Passover they readied to leave.
I felt the burn of his stubbly cheeks
funny how much in remembrance we grieve.

Ben, Ben ... I wept.
We spoke, but then in silence you died.
It was only just a moment before
while slept in my dreams I cried.

So few hours have since elapsed
in the hospital that psalm I did sing.
I am already lonely for you, forever.
when morrow’s morn would no new smiles bring.

Alan D. Busch

April 2008

Tuesday, April 15, 2008



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The Tenth Plague

We recall the makas b'choros, the slaying of the Egyptian first-born, on the first two nights of

Passover, the most terrible of the ten plagues with which He afflicted Egypt.


As in all instances of divine intercession into human affairs, fathoming

His intent, plan and ways lies beyond our intellectual grasp.

After all, who are we, but the pinnacle of His creation, to presume

that we can fathom the reasons for which He does anything?

We are limited to prayer and praise.


We can conjecture, however, that He slew the bechorim,

all the Egyptian first-born of the land, to unequivocally demonstrate

to Pharoah, a first-born himself, but spared the terrible fate of that night,

that his only choice-other than to bring utter destruction to his

country-would be to proclaim the greatness of the One God,

Ha Shem Yisborach, and thereby let the descendants of Jacob go.


His subsequent release of B’nai Yisrael, a decision he later reversed at Yam Suf,

(commonly translated as the Red Sea) cost him dearly.

We can, I believe, safely infer most Egyptian families had

more than one child. At the center of the slaying of the first-born is

not only the immeasurable power of God, but His

ability to slay the first male without causing collateral harm to

his younger siblings.


The birth of a bechor places him at the top of the birth

order. That fact alone distinguishes him from his siblings. As

happens in many youthful marriages, he is born at a time

when, not too many years before, his mother and father were

the children of their once youthful parents. We set him apart

from his younger siblings-not because we love him any the

more-but that his childhood begins when ours ends. Should

he predecease us, a part of us dies too ... the remnant of an

earlier time in our lives, faint tracings of our own childhood.