V. As Part of Something More [untitled] As in a peaceful orchard Alone In infinite silence To touch the crown of the blue To tread the transparent path —Ruth Gilead translated by Esther Cameron quick glance Crimson and gold leaves cling to branches and autumn arrives with color. How could evil exist in such a beautiful setting? Did Eden’s garden glow? While the Almighty suppresses tears for man’s free choice to continue to harm fellow humans, we are given streaks of setting sun, snowflakes, spring buds to show us a glimpse of Utopia so we may better bear much darkness in daily life. —Lois Greene Stone Utopias Salty sea Summer vacation And now—in a wood, say, —Judy Koren GENESIS Suddenly it’s Genesis and I appoint myself care-taker of a piece of earth's crust Plowing Planting Watering Pruning Picking Kindling Burning Building Feeding Getting rid of poisonous insects All those occupations that If you give them an instant Grab your Whole Life —Sabina Messeg translated by the author THERE IS NO HOUSE OPPOSITE MY HOUSE There is no house opposite my house, no window opposite my window, no door opposite my door, no strife opposite my song —— I am neighbor to a body of mountains that stands erect above the supine bodies of the valley Their love is more pleasant to me than the love of humans Their love exempts me from duties of the heart, it lets my soul go free I no longer need loves— just one more day, and another… and another , just days that rush forth shorter and shorter just time, just the light tremor of the pen ballpoint or fountain into whose nostrils has risen from under the scorched crust of earth —— the scent of water —Sabina Messeg translated by Esther Cameron and the author SUBWAY CITY It was a social painting society moving a tradition of going and places achieved the divide of space sacrificed for destination remarkable for determination embroidered hearts safe from strangers each a star without a shine a name hidden within rivers of shoulders a universe of faces each with a history like waves under a ship. —Roger Singer SUBWAY FLOOR WITH PAINTED PATTERN Someone made this subway floor of variegated flecks, each a part of something more against a base of black. Look down—the variegated flecks come in hues of human skin against a base of nightsky black: off-white, off-red, yellow, brown, tan. . . . So many hues like human skin, sized, shaped, placed like confetti, off-white, red, yellow, brown, taupe, tan, as if every fleck were ready, festive-flung like fun confetti, to go as Someone's subway floor of mixed society—ready to ride as part of something more. —James B. Nicola SONG OF THE PEACEFUL HEART What lasted was the Lord’s, his fingers Busy with creation, sunny weather And the sound of roosters laughing. Later, the music of bulls Dancing around a campfire Waiting for the females to arrive. Sitting on a mossy log with a banjo plinking Oh Susanna A raccoon hums & smiles. Children touched By the finger of God Skip like monkeys, pure happiness, No witnesses required. —Alan Basting FAMILY COLORS In my family now are many colors, and backgrounds: European, Hispanic, African, Asian, and Native American too. One family: children, spouses and grandchildren. Ours is just one of many thousands across the globe building a new future, and new vision, of inclusion for us all. —Duane L Herrmann ”LE LIVING”* The living. Compromise of the living. We are not like the heroic dead. Graceless, scrofulous with scrupulosity, I saw our desire to mirror ourselves.... Lo! We are proud performers in a little rock and shrub enclosed circle. We have the dignity of the rays of the sun, the step of the expectation of the onlooker— What if our dance is a prance? Join us. —Reuven Goldfarb
*The ”Le” refers to The Living Theatre, a radical theatre formed in New York in the ‘60’s by Judith Malina and Julian Beck, whose premise was that the audience was as much a part of the play as the actors, and that the play (and your part in the play) began as soon as you entered the building or the space where the performance was to be held. Extend this aesthetic further out, and we are all actors in the play of life. The Forest Path I want to go to you where the kudzu darkens a space like a secret door to a grand foreign place so I can slip into where I belong. where I began merge with dirt, earth, and leaf all belief before me and hold in my hand cool mystery like water from the stream This dull day I can only catch a chance glance at the deer on the roadside eating sweet grass the hawk on a long branch at rest as I sit uneasy, a stranger in a crowd that forgets the meaning of many words The past means little to me, cast out a fair price for the delight of falling and rising up for a choice that means so much I don’t like prim talks, neat walks, teacup lawns and arduous laws yet I cast myself out somewhere a long time ago I got very lost I’m heading now to find my way back to the pine shadowed forest path. —Susan Oleferuk WHERE TO? How cunningly the hours are spent roaming the boxwood grove alongside the river. Thoughts come astride of each footfall, fleeting but recaptured within moments, thereafter to be counted if, in fact, fleeting occurrences count in the daily climbing of each precipice. It is altogether useless to complain. Just look to the sky for comfort, as if stars could be seen in daylight before sun begins to meddle. Where should she start, knowing that starting points are arbitrary and inconsiderate of any urge to get immediately into motion. However, thoughts will do no lasting damage. She is prepared to comport with whatever is required in the field and to claim innocence if anyone objects. She will commence with a general scurrying in friendly territory and will plan to reach the outpost in due course. —Irene Mitchell TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN By the consent of the Omnipresent, weary of supplications, And by the consent of the audience held captive in auditoriums By the assembly on the top floors of high rises And by the assembly of the ground floor, the dwellers in streets We permit you everything And the court repeats the formula three times: All things are permitted to you All things are forgiven you All things help you And the light is sweet and good to the eyes and it is permitted to love Go forth —Amichai Chasson Swollen and Swelling Now all the earth is swollen and swelling, the fields and the furrows are swollen and swelling, swelling and swollen, the ditches and rivers, the fatbergs and graves, are swollen and swelling, swelling and swollen, the longings of children buried in prisons are flowing and swelling, foaming and swollen, the hands of the migrants, imprisoned for being, are lifeless and broken, hallowed and aching, we have suffered from generals riding stone horses we have suffered from flags waved in our faces we have suffered our congress of mansplaining con men, we rise with the women we rise over churches, we rise over armies, battered unbroken, believing and seeing, buoyed by the zeitgeist, the flux and the flooding. Shall I say goodbye to the ruined land where will I go clutching my iPhone, wearing a watch that counts all my footsteps, where will the GPS lead? What will I find that restores the lost forests, turns loose the walled rivers. My virtual reality is chock full of diversion, friends laughing on Facebook, family on Facetime. Yet I long for an animal to caress, for the cry of the fox, song of the loon over calm evening water, the splash of a frog that is not threatened, the glimpse of a wolf that is not tagged and tracked, the scent of mossy stones where a sweet sea laps the shore. Up from our humblebrag leaders, up from the binge—watching flock, up from the talk shows and scorn of the foreign we rise with the women, we gather together in gardens and farm fields, growing and plowing, in the season of seeding, when all the earth is swollen and swelling, when a torrent of blackbirds will come down and remake us, skirling and screeching, wailing and whirling over the wetlands, the cattails and rushes, our home and beginning. —Douglas Macdonald AXIS MUNDI When that's done you will again be a Messiah I will again be a dove Together we'll be the leading sheep ringing in the fields of the bodies Whatever she knows is most correct We'll hover between the heavenly and earthly Jerusalem In this gentle motion this path straight as an arrow Skewered like Cozbi and Zimri (Yes, I know Despite and despite) On the axis mundi Precisely above the foundation stone —Tirtsa Posklinsky Shehory translated by Esther Cameron What I’ll Miss 1. Swimming with you in a glacial pond in Wellfleet —water warmer than air in September— so clear you can see twenty feet down, perch flitting in between—miniature submarines. It takes us all summer to get to where we can swim across and back Dyer Pond. We need to relearn to relax and breathe, turning heads to capture air, returning to a fluid world our bodies seem to remember somewhere beyond thought—our arms extend to pull and push the water behind where legs scissor and feet paddle. We slice through—smooth as seals. 2. Maybe this is the world we’ll return to— the one we were baptized in, the one where we spent most of our first year, hooked up, enveloped, floating in viscous warmth until we grew too big to carry and had to emerge into the light of this world. Could it be like that? Not heaven but the murky dusk of our subconscious where now we nightly float and where we will return to remember how to breathe and swim and see. —Ed Meek Utopia among people Whirlpools of clouds in a dream cradle White clusters, black-grey clusters Riding on the wind, with human sighs Rising to the embroidered skies Memorializing like a flash in the eye’s lens Blazing Vancouver at burning sundown And frozen Baker Mountain in its Snow white gown. Its neighbors are silent at its feet at the lake shore The soul longs To shelter under other souls’ humble wings. Words from the soul’s lake tear the net The strands of thought Like the quacking of mallards Spreading the depths of the soul in a net of words Shortening the distance To touch, to feel, to breathe, to see To look down on the valley from the summit To look into the valley of others’ dreams To dance with them like elves in fairytales Spirit with spirit Word with word Mesh in gentle accord To prolong the generous moment Like a sustained chord And the secret of the body and its outburst Like a corset Will be removed —Rachelly Abraham-Eitan PUTTING ON TEFILLIN ”And you shall put these, My words, on your heart and on your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ” (Deuteronomy 11:18) Every morning the prophet Ezekiel put on Tefillin of a chariot, And when he wound the straps around his arm, He would see the tracks of wheels And a storm wind; and a cloud; and a fire ablaze. Every morning King David put on Tefillin of a harp, And when he wound the straps around his arm, He would see musical notes Quavering on a seven-lined stave. Every morning Joseph put on Tefillin of dreams, And when he wound the straps around his arm, He would see stars binding sheaves As the sun and the moon whispered: 'Amen.' Every morning Jacob put on Tefillin of a ladder, And when he wound the straps around his arm, He would see angels ascending Rung by rung. But I — every morning I put on Tefillin of sand, And when I wind the straps around my arm, They break apart, disintegrate and disperse Like grains in the desert of routine. When will I put on Not the tefillin of Rashi, Nor the tefillin of Rabbeinu Tam, But rather The tefillin of Rabbi Nachman, Tefillin of Shabbat? —Yakov Azriel Revelatory Vistas Religion having lost its cutting edge in western realms, we need a new conceit that realistically can put a wedge between man’s arrogance and the elite presumptions most religious realms afford. We need to open up the roof that hides galactic mysteries which checkerboard the universe with cosmic regicides. Perhaps their subjects need to be less smug and with the ever after less secure. We’d better probe past gilt-edged books that plug up holes in reason’s rusty armature and give up sailing from a spirit realm. But then we need to stand fast at the helm. —Frank De Canio Ex Nihilo I In Cordova Pure and refined They created And re—created Worlds of knowledges Of fathers and mothers Creating together Hearts in love with G-d Knowledges of worlds Beyond good and evil In need of darkness In order to discern the light Neither inside nor outside Joined together Empty and full in the study hall The doing of the Universe Through their extended vision II Born in the balance mothers and fathers higher and higher intelligences mold themselves By stages From nothing— A crown Desire to create Inside out In order to receive I sink deep inside To that place of twinkling growth And pull, gasp, push. We Parents Participate in the Crowning III into the emptiness He poured the rules created safe borders to find peace for the rumbling and tumbling in the Hidden Place yet to be revealed I close my eyes count the months lean against the wall that separates me from annihilation in perfect belief that all will remain as it was when I awaken IV I perceive a world that exists in a balance of pure light reality fractured by distinctions In the paradox… Paradise And Supernal reality Both too much with too little light Blind, Blur the differences Between day and night To co-exist in contradiction —Mindy Aber Barad WHEN RABBI AKIVA DIED A MARTYR’S DEATH ”Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5) ”‘with all your soul’ — Rabbi Akiva taught, even when your soul is being taken away” (The Talmud) When Rabbi Akiva died a martyr’s death, Tortured with iron combs as he was slain, His soul untainted, his body raked by pain — What did he see as he gasped his final breath? Chimneys with human smoke from the twentieth Century? Fires from autos-da-fe in Spain? How decades after Abel’s murder, Cain Still schemed to slaughter all the sons of Seth? Or as he said the Shma and died, did he Behold the Temple rise above the sand And dust of death, enveloped by an aura? For there, inside the Temple’s court, Rashi And the Rambam, the Gra, the Besht, all stand, Nodding as the Messiah teaches Torah. —Yakov Azriel HUNGER They left me in the forest. My sister who is me and me Got lost and lost. I doubled myself because loneliness is The real beast. And in the thick of the forest no one speaks my language (Out of the meagre mouth pours darkness. From the clenched lap to the uttering lips). Memory shrinks to a sentence: The hunger was very severe (description) I ate and ate and was not satisfied (cause) They left me in the forest (effect) They left me in the forest (repetition) They left me in the forest (compulsive repetition). I dream of a burning gingerbread house Deep in the forest And inside the house a broad woman Whose eyes are tender. —Netalie Braun translated by Esther Cameron with the author TO THE SHEKHINAH IN TEVET Upon this day of darkness, Mother, may Your image rise and shine in many minds As the one metaphor of all our caring, Sign of the being in which we must live. Your image rises, shines in many minds. Your light shines forth from one face to another. Sign of the being in which we must live, In your presence things fall into place. Your light shines forth from one face to another. Under your glance the ways of help appear. In your presence things fall into place. You organize our issues and concerns. Under your glance the ways of help appear. In your hands the things we do add up. You organize our issues and concerns. You are the map, the blueprint of our temple. In your hands the things we do add up. You are memory, storehouse of our good. You are the map, the blueprint of our temple. You are the meeting-place, the standing-ground. You are memory, storehouse of our good. You are mind’s integrity and purpose. You are the meeting-place, the standing-ground, Talisman of the freedom of the upright. You are mind’s integrity and purpose. You show us how to sift the laws and customs. Talisman of the freedom of the upright, Through you we know what we must hold inviolate. You show us how to sift the laws and customs. As the one metaphor of all our caring, Soul of creation, our inviolate House, Upon this day of darkness, Mother, rise. —Esther Cameron I'LL TELL YOU HOW HAPPY THEY WERE We were sitting in Sheshet's bar near the streets of the river Mixing cocktails of being and nothingness in tall Colorful glasses that almost shattered in our hands, drinking and swimming From the mouth of the river to the end of the last sea, swimming and drinking Not listening to the heavenly voice whispering: water, water. —Amichai Chasson translated by Esther Cameron You Hope to Be You hope to be a discoverer Of the spark of life which links Person to person— Soul to soul. You hope to illuminate This world of darkness, Seeing past the warpedness The woundedness Weaving together Neshama, neshama, Until all neshamas are one. Do not undertake this lightly Lest you are the sole light Left out of the great gathering, Exiled from the utopia You hope to create. —Sara DeBeer |