Joy Ladin

Joy Ladin (1961- ) is a widely published essayist and poet, literary scholar, and nationally known speaker on transgender issues. Joy is the author of twelve books, including the National Jewish Book Award-winning revised second edition of The Book of Anna (EOAGH, 2021); 2018’s The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective.

Time Passes

Time too is afraid of passing, is riddled with hole

through which time feels itself leaking.

Time sweats in the middle of the night

when all the other dimensions are sleeping.

Time has lost every picture of itself as a child.

Now time is old, leathery and slow.

Can’t sneak up on anyone anymore,

Can’t hide in the grass, can’t run, can’t catch.

Can’t figure out how not to trample

what it means to bless.

— Joy Ladin