Too Many Coats of Many Colors

When I went to see the Lord Buddha, he was appearing in Denver, so I walked one thousand miles - and I thought, ah! I shall be as new and simple as a new-born Amish, and wear a wide brimmed hat and use no electricity and ignore the internet and salt my speech with words archaic... When I went to see Jesus he was fishing on the sea so I walked the one thousand miles and swam the last eleven, like an iron man competition or triathlon, as young as when I was young indeed and wore a Speedo and acted selfless and spoke in parables and shy smiles... When I went to hear the Prophet, and when I took a taxi to Union Square to hear the Reb Akiva I spoke Arabic and Hebrew like a real dākhil standing by the Western wall or standing up above, and wore a kafiya as I strutted, and a fine high shtreimel... And when I arrived, I was too late. Weighed down with the right clothes, the correct ideas, and impostures of "holy" folk, I had imperceptibly slowed to a crawl as I dragged endless chains of beliefs behind me across the desert, raising a cloud of dust into the sky, as high, as high, as Hubble's high!

notes: (Arab) dakhil: Arab citizen of Israel
shtreimel: a fur hat