V. In Between

 
BS”D 6 Iyyar 5786
 
I will climb on your wings
Raise me little by little
Lest I become dizzy in the heights
 
I will see more than my measure
 
Set me tenderly on this hill you established
 
A bird chirped
 
Silence
Wind
What now
                    —Tziporah Faiga Lifshitz

 

*

Sequels
 
I think I prefer the sky to land—
its amber lines and soft edges,
its dark passage and blue promise,
its aversion to remaining,
its desire for a sequel and
another and another
—a version
of redemption,
a night followed
by visions.
                            —L. Ward Abel

 

*
 
Swept along by the Holy Wind
to places I had never been
or only dreamed to be
while tossed upon the stormy sea,
and ports I never would have stayed,
had I the Holy Wind betrayed.

                                                                                                                          —Elhanan ben Avraham
 

*

 

ORDEAL

Remember what was shown on the darkest night,
secrets of a painful universe left unseen in the morning's light,
visions of oneself in the naked starlight
with curtain drawn on the flowery lands of sun
and countless days like webs of the spider spun,
expanses empty, filled by a word of the silent speech,
the ocean's treasures washed up, left on the lonely beach,
lest tides return to draw them back to the churning deep,
and make to forget the tears that the night had caused to weep-
then enter mercy's light of another day,
weighed with the salty treasures of gold to the grateful heart,
and send it beating forth on the untread way.

                                                                                                                               —Elhanan ben-Avraham
 
 *

 

Fire Tongues

 

Hope springs up

it always springs up

like flutes in a forest

where the gloom is great.

 

When wills are too frozen

to finish the race

and the moon wrinkles down

on wheels that are stuck

comes a little tune singing

a little flame late.

 

By the heath, by a warrior

where the spokes lie crushed

and the hum grows silent

amidst slivers of rust

hides a locket, a mirror

a coin or a crust

 

or something to sing with

tongues of fire from dust.

—Hannah Amit

 

 

 

 

 

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I'm surfing at high tide

With the conviction to conquer any storm that comes my way

I glance at hungry seagulls  gliding and grabbing easy prey.

When suddenly I find myself at low tide, shivering, exposed

Black stormy clouds envelop me

And for a flickering moment I tremble before the thought of non-being

I pray not to be prey.

For if not for the mercy of the Merciful One,

we'd be swallowed by the swamps  along the seashore.

—Golda Rivka Warhaftig

 

 

Icarus Redux

 

                 Like a bird at the edge of water,

                   I wanted to drink, but could not bend

                      

               to it.  I wanted to fly, but could not raise

                    inflated wings without puncturing

 

                 them.  I wanted to soar and dive, skirt

a pen and ink horizon moving farther

 

              out to sea than I could ever reach.

 On a pebbled beach, I stood shaking

 

              A little, outstretched wings, not quite set.

—Paula Goldman

 

where light goes

 

a stranger’s voice called you

appearing just to leave

a faceless day angled to view

lessons in suspended belief

weren’t they standing there

forgotten by now

life in a series of doubt

was anything written within

don’t you see we’re in between

together and alone

where we learn to speak

not knowing when

to live and die apart from here

a sense given in reply

isn’t there something of night

somewhere you can touch

colors in contoured innocence

following pleas of never go

—Kenneth Kesner

 

 

 Face to Face

 

How does a memory

out of decades,

particular, precise,

rise out of thought,

a thought out of sorrow

to urge you on

to make, to do,

to go where you may

not even know to where?

You try for your footing, 

struggle to find

a set of words, a sound,

an image for a season,

a way to picture

the scene while maybe

standing among steaming pots.

alone in your kitchen.

When the absence of a great

love confronts you

you look for a way to say,
I am here, Here I am,

like Adam, like Eve

face to face

with all you’ve done

when God asks,  

Where are you? And wherever

you are you are very small

and want to answer, be heard.

—Reizel Polak

 

Universal Conquering of Night

Ara, meaning “the altar,” in Latin

was in ancient times the most remote southerly constellation,

and a meeting place of now vanquished pagan gods

Portal at midnight - candle lit

pinions tipped

with wind and spice

then purest softest

southern flight

toward soul's deep longing -       

victory’s site..

Night flames darting

draw me on

past wave and starlight’s

winsome calm.

I discern Ara’s horizon -

God’s pageantry at dawn  

as darkness slips

into its fathomless grave.

   —Hannah Amit

WHAT ASCENDS TO THE THINNESS

 

The black earth is heavy and in pain

The brook is clear the grass is pulsing

This morning the land filled up with the whiteness of mother’s milk

The mountains dance as we ascend and descend

Don’t step on the children

Pure-white crocuses burn with a flame

They light the festive candelabrum with the fragrance of milk and clover

They now spread before us a different land

And a God with uncovered face is given to us

 

On the mountain stands a stone and from it the spring

And it has a heart that longs yearns pines

We look into its flow

The man of lovingkindness is mirrored

In the waters of the cloud that weary dream awakens to life

 

All the hearts which burst into sparks of sparks

That were broken that were scattered

They blossom now in the spaces of the midnight prayer

They are with us they have left they are with us they have returned

 

I ask to see your soul and I gaze

The rocks the white grasses the oak they are your image and likeness

Innocent crocuses I will take you a feather in the inkwell I will write a poem of tidings

About the land her joy and her sorrow

And a bird swells its throat and sings.  Not everything is flung away and comes back here in echoes

Sometimes it ascends to the hidden thinness, disappears far far away.  On the heights it is kept for coming generations

 

—Chana Kremer

 

_____________

 

 

Postscript

 

Could this

scattering yet

coalesce into a

Being of well-sorted souls, a

new birth?

—Esther Cameron