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VIII. Whatever It Is
Thank you for asking the soul to speak: it is constantly whispering its secrets, asking to love and be loved and wondering if anyone is listening. --James McGrath
POEM
To see the soul is to see the shadow that connects us to the stones, to the wind, to the wrinkled poems in the bark of a tree, to the whispers of who has left us and who is to come.
It dances our dance.
It sleeps with us when we sleep.
The soul holds the light of the moon and the warmth of the sun when we are alone. —James McGrath
The Soul --for Esther Cameron
Everything is nothing to a star Not to little you or me
With it we thrive Without it we flail
Even Leonardos nod It ‘s not in the pineal gland
With it we rise Without it we fall
Martin Buber was right Between us almost nothing yeasts
Despite lean and angry years We ‘re still at it
Whatever it is It is —Thomas Dorsett
Towards a Unified Theory
It‘s all round to me What‘s here is there All at the same time In this doppelgänger World of mirrors
I peer through At the opposite While I see me Looking back at Myself but from The outside and Not able to get in.
Such is the backyard Is the region is the Half of the earth that I just passed through On the way to the Other one. —L. Ward Abel
Clinical, Part III
Behind each eye is another eye. The space within a cranial bulb can ‘t be described in dimensions: Sinuous hills of grey, mottled with knotweed and scrub pine moored by a silted sky. Not dark, not light. Nor day, nor night.
There was an incident when I was a boy, followed by a thousand more, as present as the crow perched outside my window. He calls warnings to the house finches gossiping around the feeder. A Cooper‘s Hawk circles above.
A lifetime of humiliations hoarded in the hippocampus. Some in neat rows, some in sweaty piles. The soul‘s claustral attic. Everyone eyes the man, few can see the ghost. —Christopher Stewart
THE SOULS
Outside on a green lawn a giant water-oak conducts a sunset. Some unsteady hum has summoned us out of our houses. My ancient lady friend, who lives nearby, is jawing now, and wears an awed-holy expression as she says they are souls, yes sir. And they are everywhere, they wade the dusky clouds, they are giant black-winged fruits hanging, falling, bouncing. The green is black with them. And neighbors stare; they worry for their
cars and pickups. If they get into the red berries, it ‘s hell on paint. Shoot them. No, they are beautiful. They are a menace. Look out below! They rise and wheel, kaleidoscopic, inside rings of themselves. They set themselves against the sky, black on blue. They caw. They are telling themselves, or us, something. They caw and caw, and what is it they are saying, so earpiercingly, holes through your eardrums, through your brain,
as if lasered? Then they settle again, like a black blizzard of huge coal flakes. The souls come back to visit us, to tell us that they know everything now. Now their sharp yellow beaks pierce the lawn. They are busier than worms, in a feast of famishment, an ecstasy of appetite. Now, she says, the nonagenarian, I ‘ll soon be with them, and then it ‘s always now for me like them. The souls have found their
bodies. I don ‘t know which is which, but somewhere, there, is everyone who died, all the loved ones, and even the others, the ones that nobody loved, they are all there now, she says. I stare as deep as I can see. They are every blessed place—on roofs, looking down, in trees, on bushes, under, over, and around. Some seem to be waiting, some tug at the turning-emerald lawn in the lowering light: and now
how do they know to rise suddenly, and become one wide black wing? How do they know to circle and circle in unison, one boomerang black wing composed of so many blood-beating, sky-rowing black wings? How do they know when it ‘s time to fly along a horizon, rimmed with rising red? The souls, they know, they know! I think it must be out of some distant folklore that the old lady speaks, eyes fixed, waving them goodbye.
—E.M. Schorb
Brook and Thunder
When I reach this deep inside I come to a stone wedged between brook and thunder.
At times I bear the roar at times forge the gap that quakes like a stealthy fault.
Can we not smooth this path? Can we not bridge the torrents burnish the jagged spans until we shine like golden rays?
Now unfolded I seek the sun now cowered in darkness I escape the sinewy storm.
When will this stone dislodge? When like Icarus will I ascend fearless and proud eclipse the furious sun wax gently across the sky and conquer the inevitable, perilous fall?
WHEEL
Consider the wheel Spinning with endless speed Standing in place Like a spherical movement of the soul And in the inner kernel an abyss of light is revealed From which it will ascend — Ruth Netzer tr. EC
A Question and a Question
Speaking of the soul, I ask, why is it never defined? You say, how can one define the infinite? Instead, focus on what fills the soul. Earth. Pull the soil into your fists. This is the blood. The center that pulls us back. It is not the Earth that fills, I say, but the air. the white spaces between the letters are also counted. You ask, lips parted, eyes opened, head turned, What is spirit? from the Latin, esprit, meaning “breath,” I think, but I say instead, Connection. Feel the smile pull back your aching cheeks, the stomach- pull of breathless laughter, your loved ones surrounding you. This fills the soul more than the air around it. You say, the soul is the driver. It ‘s the battery that brings light. It has no switch. I am the switch, I say. You are the switch. Purpose drives the switch. My own, I know, is reaching out. An open hand. A questioning mind. A child, in tears. An answer and another answer. I pour from my hands. I am a giver and it reveals my soul. Often I pour so much, I am empty. an ocean held, heavy and thick. grab and snap the depths until the ink stains the page. This too, fills the soul.
Once, in class, a student had a sentence. A proper sentence, right in line. And then, to everyone ‘s confusion, a noun. It was a feathery thing, with bright eyes, webbed feet, and fishy breath. Everybody laughed. The student, I thought, missed the assignment. lost words, too, fill the soul. —Alana Schwartz
Dream Angel
What was explained to me was that we were washing the stones
beside the reeds in the pool along the river
because they didn ‘t just represent but actually were moments of our lives.
How she showed me the way to cleanse the crystals,
precisely how to immerse our hands into the swirling flow of the current,
the various colors of the jewels sparkling in the water, as we rinsed
and rinsed them again, our hands catching them in the streaming flow
of the river, a brisk wind blowing the cattails we crouched amid,
rocking them stiffly above our heads. What was instilled in me
was her kindness, how eloquent her nonverbal language was, how
efficient she was in her teaching me to tend to the process, that it was something
to persevere in coming to know, her hair wound in a bun above her tunic,
how everything about her emanated tenderness in her acts of devotion, how
that was transferred to me through her, washing and washing the precious stones
beneath the rippling water of the pool, as we focused our eyes downward
in performing the work at hand, although somehow seeing everything
around us at the same time, not once ever revealing the beauty of her face,
which may have been too radiant for me to be able to see without shielding my eyes. —Wally Swist
IN THE BLUE OF TWILIGHT
From the balcony of my dwelling I look out at the stone alleyways. A bluish gate stands facing me.
Before it pass gray silhouettes, Breaking forgotten moments of light, Grazing at the edge of the street.
Midway between us, Pairs of feet, unfeeling and unfelt, Wear out their hands toward haughty ivory towers. In the black of their eyes The horizon gutters out at the bottom of the road
In my twilight time The tree of the word Embraces a window-arch that is open wide. Petals whirl in a dance of longing For the radiant sunset Of a tomorrow That seems likely to arrive.
A quiet wind winds its way from my table To the space between the walls, Whispers in the branches of the thicket. An easterly echo plays with the tips of the leaves, Yellows on the walls of the indefinite.
The wind falls silent —
Flat words iron out Voices from the depth of the earth. Withered leaves, Falling with a sorrowful scraping sound, Carry on their backs Tongue-tied letters, Closed off by the shutters of the graying blue
At the side of the gate, Clutched in the hands of a fleshy cactus, A rusting urn of flowered oil Looks toward me up the stairway.
In the white of my pupils Silvery waters collect To the sounds of the song of the road stones. They set their feet on the way To drawn hearts In the blue of twilight. —Tzadok Yehuda tr. EC
Substantiations of Immortality
In the ear a ringing as of hammers.
In the past the always present regret.
In the nostril the acrid voice of flame.
In her eye the intimations of neglect.
In shadow the whispered prospect of silence.
In her voice a distant memory of blue light.
In the blue the disappearance of Truth.
Through the air ashfall quiet as snow.
—DB Jonas
[from The Book of Hours: The Book of The Monastic Life}
I am, you fearful one. Do you not hear me burn against you with all my senses? My feelings that found wings encircle your knowing face. And don‘t you see my soul standing before you in a dress of silence? And isn ‘t my spring prayer ripening inside you like fruit on a tree?
If you ‘re the dreamer, I‘m the dream. But if you want to wake up, I am your will and powerful in all glory and round me like a starry stillness over the whimsical city of time. —Rainer Maria Rilke —translated from the German by Wally Swist
ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY PRAYERS
each one a child ‘s hand reaching. If they had mouths how would they speak if they had eyes what would they see?
One hundred and fifty prayers delicate and sparkling in the wind, each one a separate leaf, fluttering, waving, sending its pure wish of hope out on the air.
Who will cover them gently at night when it grows dark? Who will kneel at one hundred and fifty bedsides and place their hands together pointing upward,
each wave of the sea each drop of rain another prayer.
One hundred and fifty eyes holy and quiet, seeking the prayers that scatter like butterflies and hummingbirds too delicate to hold. —Jean Varda (Greenberg)
Route
Everyone is sleeping, below.
On deck, alert, the helmsman and I.
He, watching the needle, master of the bodies, with their keys thrown out. I, my eyes on the infinite, driving the open treasures of the souls. —Juan Ramón Jiménez translated from the Spanish by Wally Swist
Journey
—Lucia Haase
OF EMILY DICKINSON
A flower poked its face at me— tiny as it was, it magnified my wonderment more than learning does.
A teacher poked his face at me— craggy as it seemed, it showed me bridges I must cross to ways I had not dreamed.
A spirit poked its face at me— features I could not tell, that put to question what I was in this corporeal shell. —Harvey Steinberg
An Impartation to Cut Class
tr. EC
As Gravity Builds Bone
As gravitation braids the straining fiber upward through the humid dark and builds the muscling bone
as daylight beckons into being each tender gathering leaf and glazes every searching eye
while dark aromas excavate each eager nostril in reply to what ‘s no longer there
and all the wild cochlea blossom in reply to whorling melodies that startle the awakened air
just so each body that we are each life is fashioned of the world entire as scar investiture or mute response
to all that lies outside of us a world outside the will before the self each sinew of our provenance. —DB Jonas
Tale of a Self-Portrait
Standing in front of the mirror My face a blank.
Above my
head an eagle soars And in the mirror is the reflection of a complete face. This is me. All the colors, all the generations, all the worlds.
—Deborah Mantzur
JOHANN‘S CANON
You open your eyes to Pachelbel‘s progression His bass line is fixed like your beauty And the two lines of the violins in the right and left hands Which you wave vigorously, involuntarily. Taking care not to fall The huge tuba pulls you in to a maternal belly Great conduits of weeping from the womb of the earth in seat number 13 row 7 of the concert hall In the presence of all a wondrous aura Is being woven and and interlaced round your body And the conductor with his brush pierces drips of blood of memory Was it in Berlin, was in in the cattle car? In the monastery of young priests, Or in other incarnations? Pachelbel‘s progression is three heads of the complete crown and the hidden wisdom And there is a wisdom that can make connections with the creatures The sounds rise and gather might Wisdom and kindnesses you hear-see harmonies From your hearing aid and progressive glaucoma you hear-see symphonies The thousand voices of your thousand years Yesterday everyone went to the aspiring bonfire And a hymn with a lachrymose melody You went and entered into the presence of Rabbi Shimon. After the bed was ignited it rose in the air and fire Blazing before it and they heard a voice Gather and come to the celebration for the dead Peace will come they will rest in peace And the conductor has a song a psalm dum dum dum As the canon finishes in the beauty of the hands. To life! And Pachelbel and you my father in the seventh heaven Are lying in the melodic-harmonic bed and kindness and severity become beauty. The middle and two lines. Violins violas cello flute drum tuba saxophone and the conductor over organ-pipes And notes and letters are dancing Lines and points You become a line and a point Your inwardness is lined with line and point And afterwards when we again totter in the sunlight A fellow citizen approaches Bless me. He bows his head like the others who used to approach you everywhere Bless me bless me and you mutter to him And I mutter to myself in the sound box He is a line and a point He is a note and a point —Chana Kremer (tr. EC)
Anima Vitae
My soul is not my essence, nor that which I try to be, nor what I see reflected in my observers ‘ eyes. It ‘s just a scabby glowworm with colors overdreared by badly living for myself and choices made for me, and I will never live to see the chrysalis as it splits and spills out the rays of unimagined shades. —Ed Ahern
Shadow games
Have you ever tried to race your own shadow? she asked no one in particular or chase your shadow on the thick green banks bordering the icy wintry stream rushing past water lilies, kelp-like leaves, and fast swimming fresh water fish, silvery and cold, indifferent, blind to our shadows, fish, fish, not on a dish, minding their own business, voiceless, journeying to sea and back again to that same stream, to spawn and die. Don‘t eat the rhubarb leaves! exclaimed Auntie G. But you may partake of the wild green Onions that leave no shadow in the grey winter sun. O, O, Ophelia, O! —Brenda Appelbaum-Golani January 2023
FOR THE SOUL
For the soul is my little sister in my lap, on the grass sitting for a moment, laughing, wants to play, makes me angry, wants to bother me doesn ‘t sleep.
For the soul is my sister who never rests. She can ‘t manage alone. —Hamutal Bar-Yosef (tr. EC)
TO YOUR HANDS I ENTRUST MY SPIRIT
To Your hands I entrust my spirt seized with bewilderment like the eyes of a toad sticky and breathing from the belly sometimes puffed up, sometimes deflated in the firefly darkness suddenly caught up between the palms of a child who holds his beating heart before the eyes of his horrified mother.
—Hamutal Bar-Yosef (tr. EC)
FORGETTING “The one who has a kind eye will be blessed, for he has given of his bread to the poor.“ Proverbs 22:9
This is what I forgot And will not regret again Everything lost and vanished In order to soothe the pain.
But in my throat is the pain of forgetting Whenever I awake From the drunkenness of being That surrounds the pit agape.
Then the memory of another forgetting Shakes off oblivion ‘s sleep And more and more come to join the dance A wild revel they keep
In nothingness the body will find From its grief a refuge sure, But where are the spirit ‘s wings, the blessing Of the eye that gives bread to the poor?
—Eva Rotenberg (tr. EC)
SHORTFALL
I wish certain things were possible and real but from thought to matter they will not congeal. With my imperfections, that likely is best for otherwise my spirit would fail the test. —John P. Kneal
THE BAY "… be gracious unto me and hear my prayer." (Psalm 4:2)
The bay! I‘m searching for the happiness That I had known when I was younger, blessed By simple faith and firm belief, caressed By ocean waves. I hope to repossess The beach on which it never rained unless I prayed for rain, the sand on which I pressed My fingerprints, and shells that luminesced A lunar white no night would dare suppress.
How was it possible to lose a bay, A beach, translucent shells and ocean waves? I ask if there‘s a possibility, O God of tides, that I might find a way Of going back, of leaving desert caves Behind me and returning to the sea? --Yakov Azriel
THE SERPENT, AFTER EDEN "O Lord, in Your anger do not rebuke me, in Your wrath do not afflict me. Have pity on me, for I am miserable, heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled." (Psalm 6:2-3)
How difficult to speak, devoid of voice, Unable to request a second chance, Or to admit I made a wretched choice Dictated by my pride and arrogance.
How difficult to write, devoid of arms, Of fingers and of hands that hold a pen, And scrolls on which I‘d copy fervent psalms Expressing how I wouldn‘t err again.
How difficult to pray, devoid of soul, That inner arm which pulls away from wrong, That inner voice which teaches self-control And whispers in the dark, half-cry, half-song.
I slither, soulless, limbless, mute and thin; How poor a diet is the dust of sin. —Yakov Azriel
I MUST HAVE BEEN ASLEEP "The Lord will be a high tower for the oppressed, a high tower in times of trouble. And they who know Your name will put their trust in You, for You, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek You." (Psalm 9:10-11)
I must have been asleep, O Lord, at least A thousand years, I must have been asleep When You revealed the field where outcasts reap Rich grain You planted for their Sabbath feast. I must have been asleep when You released All lepers from disease and those who weep Were freed from nightmares which they used to keep Beneath their pillows of a creeping beast.
I surely must have been asleep, for how Can I explain the fact, my King, that though You set up signposts to Your throne — the throne I should have sought — I never came. But now I am awake, thank God, and seek to know The knowledge of Your name I should have known. --Yakov Azriel
RECOVERY
In the depths we so rarely care to see or feel but where we tossed memories that once tore at our core drowsy dragons still spit fire and snort smoke, but when we finally shine our inner beacon on them they are minuscule and mushy in our hands and leave our land and mindscape smoother than ever before. —John P. Kneal
76. Between effect and cause We hang a heavy chain And try to climb across.
Between before and after We plot a dotted line, Attempting to control.
Too many abstract models Reduce the human soul; Mere parts without a whole. —David Weiser
172. Silver chains of wisdom, Descending link by link, Have reached my outstretched arms.
I strain to grasp the handles To elevate myself, But something drags me down.
The quicksand of my folly, The swamp of vanity, Is where my soul will drown. —David Weiser
460. The soul has empty spaces Like a flag with bullet holes That flutters through the war;
Like wide and fertile fields With spots of stubborn sand Where crops cannot be grown.
The world has vacant lots Where something should be built, Where seeds of hope are sown. —David Weiser
The Leap
I was half-mad with despair, Hopeless in love and life, At the end of my rope-- so I chose to drown, To cease all pain in Sweet oblivion, to be No more, to be gone….
And when I flung my Young and strong body Into that swollen river, I thought that ‘s what Awaited me—nothing! But oh I was so wrong, For my agnostic mind Could not foresee the Awaiting vast blackness, The pain beyond pain, And the utter aloneness— No other souls, none But my bodiless mind That had spurned God And love as well, and Now roiled in torment, Until I called out to Him And was released From hell to return To the world I had So recently spurned.
Some will discount This as the ravings Of a young man Breaking apart— It‘s only fear, just Imagined terrors, Be brave they say, Neither heaven nor Hell awaits us, our Only fate, extinction.
I might wish them To be right, but They are deluded— As I once was, for Now I know there Is no way out, no Escape from oneself, From one‘s mind, From one‘s soul…. — Nolo Segundo
[untitled]
This is the dark night of the soul this is the silence that presses in from every direction and steals the breath, this is the quiet at 3 AM that ticks like a clock that has no mercy and the pale blue shadows that fall beneath the trees of winter, quiet still and frozen. This is the night the soul awakens and finds nobody there but darkness unfurling in every direction. This is the dark night of the calm soul that rocks in the stillness of winter and looks up to a sky broken with stars, wrapped in the winds that would save it. —Jean Varda (Greenberg)
Augenblick Rühmen, das ists! RM Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus I,7
Requiring of me no intention it‘s nothing but the issue
of each moment past the exhalation ‘s far extremity
where what I am escapes into a summoning proximity
to disappear in the gathering breath of every not-this
of each not-me this voice unheard unspoken this unintended hymn
this stammering reluctance this noisy instant of silent praise I am. —DB Jonas
LIVING
SOUL
ARE YOU WITH ME?
Are You with me Dear Lord as I seek to follow Your ways?
I ask with faith that the answer is ‘Yes‘ but only when I do Your will.
Will harmony with myself come by being together with You?
Only when two walk together on the same path as one.
Bless the Lord O my soul. —Simcha Angel
MIXTURE
Toward the end of a sleepless night defeated unto forgiveness unto myself to taste from the manger of submission a mixed fodder of thoughts I am a servant, and pure as sapphires all my stories a soiled garment covering my light —Araleh Admanit (tr. EC)
Light
Dawn ‘s silky light, velvety light of dusk sparkling on lakes, caressing hills –– wrap me in your gentle arms light, brush my smiling lips. In my deep blue eyes radiant light that reflects my white soul.
As a deer
yearns for water, so my soul yearns for You, O God….
as I learned from the sermon in “Shem Shmuel” for the second day of Rosh HaShanah in the year 5677
Thorn after thorn to cut down with song Depth within depth to sift with dance a rim of gold around to court the virgin kernel of the heart —Sara Friedland Ben-Arza (tr. EC(
“There is a small place/ in which the heart dwells with itself” – Haviva Pedaya I, who was an ark, who was shipwrecked, I, a shipwrecked ark, testify: indeed, there is that small place, for we still exist— my countenance and my G-d —Sara Friedland Ben-Arza (tr. EC)
from KERNELS OF POEMS With my soul I have desired Thee in the night (Isaiah) If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea (Psalm 139)
In the night I grow The darkness of my body fills with stars A whale in the lap of mighty waters
*
To launch the soul on the river of night On paths of water A sun-fish whose camp is heavy with gold
*
In the dark the kernel Of the soul opens Stamens of gold, thin
* The soul ‘s calyx opens Gradually Droplets of night collect —Naamah Shaked (tr. EC)
EYELASHES OF LIGHT
Eyelashes of light Signs in the world Supernal hue
*
Eyelash of G-d That dropped toward me in the rain Is it not a precious stone Inlaid In the breastplate of my heart
*
In the open door I will lie down In my soul you will see dwelling-places. Pomegranates of darkness —Ruth Netzer tr. EC
*
THE ANGEL
Then the angel came and touched our forehead And we awoke And were For he had touched us with the scepter of light And the light shone Around us Drawing a circle— A palace
All that was in the desert The dew fell Green things sprouted His deserts grow mightier And a voice of singing, the smallest of the small, Like bells of silence Rose around us And was
Yes, we are waiting for Him to make His voice heard, For our soul thirsts for the living G-d. —Ruth Netzer tr. EC
*
AS THEN SO EVER
The stars come shyly late, as long ago In childhood days. The plane-tree tops in sunset’s afterglow So purely blaze As if to take no stain, as then not ever. The sea, a green bronze on the shore ashiver As then gives praise: How full of grace the flowering moments flow.
My soul, you have not sinned! As full and strong In childhood days Your moments’ naked wonder pulsed along, That pulse now says That it can take no stain, as then not ever. See that black bird at the horizon hover: At dawn she’ll raise Your muted wonders in revealing song. -- Simon Halkin (tr. EC)
TWO POEMS
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