for Jacob at his bris
.
We were unbound then / awakened
from our waterlogged sleep
when the earth cracked open before our eyes
and sound
poured out like lava.
.
We were undecided then / bathed
in sulfur and smoke
as thunder splintered the mountain
as lightning
scorched our heels:
as our throats tightened
around notes of garbled surprise.
.
Poised on the edge of desire / enveloped
by rumbling flashes
the words
entered our fainthearted inclination
like a tornado
.
(and all the while
the roaring triumph / echoing
mountain
fire-red clouds
bleached-blind desert –
all the while,
our endless wanting).
.
There, the future broke loose
astride our whispered yes:
.
yes to the crackling earth,
to every noun
& verb exploded through the wilderness.
.
Chosen agnostics, we pleaded yes…
.
(to deliverance
and constriction both: yes)
.
to the shattering
of silence / and the shattering of stone,
for you not yet able to speak,
we said yes.
Like
Mazal tov on the Scribbler news.
And your poem made me cry. Someday Jacob will be very proud to own it.
So what great fate brought us together as friends? my mother used to say that the miracles of the Land of Israel make children of ugly parents beautiful. Maybe it is some kind of Land-of-Israel miracle that twisted and turned until we met? I’d like to think so.
Write more, more, more. I’ll be reading, reading, reading.
In a poetry book by Bertold Brecht on my parents shelf in the house of my childhood I read the following quote from a Chinese medieavle poet he chose to use as his motto. I hope you understand this, I don’t think any writer/poet should ask more of their readers:
“הרעים יראים טלפיך,
הטובים שמחים לחינך.
כזאת וכזאת חפצתי לשמוע על שירי”.
love you woman.
You are the sweetest. I’m going to get my Hebrew dictionary and work through the quote. Everyone should have readers like you…