V. Flights

 

Let me sleep

Let me sleep in song
in that quiet chamber
with hushed audience of absence
the flow of sound inside
the flow of pulse of breath

Let my soul hold this great affection
music playing in my ear
while my heart sleeps
in solitude in this unseen
gift to hold from the spheres

                                                         —Reizel Polak
                                                              2022

 

*

 

K. 488

 

is the one I turn to

in trouble and joy

 

Mozart, my Main Man

Richard Goode the man

to play it.

 

I love the way the strings come on

amble together across the stage—

a June afternoon, blue with puffy clouds

 

and then the winds take it up

their distinct voices speaking

to one another . . .

 

how the composer lays out

a perspective from the point of origin

a perfect vista, opening like a fan

narrowing closed again

 

                                                    then flings

to the gods a cantilever of notes held

one against another and pressing out and up till something

must give way—

 

I feel it at my heart as I depress these keys

as though I can make them sound—

 

then gently pulls it back and sets it down

without spilling a note.

 

 

I want it never to end and yet

it does, it must, and when it does

there is nothing more to say.

                                          —Katharine Gregg

 

*

 

When Jessye Norman Opens Her Mouth

                           And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever…

                                                                                  Psalm 23:6

 

Although the furniture is odd

and dated, the windows cleaned daily

by trumpet blasts of angels, whenever

I hear Jessye Norman’s voice, I’m

in heaven like gliding on escalators

and swooning as when shopping

in the old Marshall Fields on State St.

The mind stops, thinking “This can be mine:

lingerie—second floor, coats—fifth, mezzanine

travel items, gift wrapping.”

 

And the dream abides: no charges, no returns

for when Jessye Norman sings from old vinyls,

my plate is full, never empty.  On any day

I won’t hear “Enjoy,” “Have a good one,”

“Simply divine on you.” When Jessye sings,

the pearls of heaven tumble from,

surround her open vowels, enchanting

my palatial house.

                             —Paula Goldman

 

*

 

 Rereading

 

When I get to the end of a book I like, I like
to go back to the beginning. Beginning
with the front matter (I like the phrase front matter,
its vaguely scientific ring), I like lingering
in the blurbs, then the copyright history, then right
on to the first page. The first sentence. I like to reread
that first sentence. And the second sentence.
Then the first paragraph, letting it pull me in, in
the way of currents, riptides, until I’ve dived
right back into the flow of the book, a book
that was so good when I got to the end I said, “God,
that was amazing, how did the writer do that?” That
is the question a good book begs. And I begin
looking for answers, finding them again and again.
                                                                          —Paul Hostovsky
 
 *

Before Deciding

We will do and we will hear.

Exodus 24:7

 

Early to the word,

released like breath

into the receiving air,

the air of which we’re made,

yet late to the world,

we walk before thought,

the act enacted always

already before there’s time

to formulate a theory

of action. We are

the flesh

of what deciding is,

our incarnation older

than decision,

responding to the law

before it’s given

in a time much

earlier than hearing,

earlier than judgment,

much older than belief.

                                   —D.B. Jonas

 

*

 

A treasure, and in it a question —

Under your feet it lies.

Emotion, uncomprehended.

In your heart you are certain

Of the unascertainable —

In seconds truly divine

An hour of favor made contact.

 

Preserver, fashion an anchor

That will fulfill a sign —

Blow on the concoctions of the heart.

In mourning the writer knows a thread.

Give him from curse conclusion –

Vainly the sojourner below assessed

Where all is hither and thither.

                                               —Araleh Admanit

                                                   tr. EC

 

*

 

THE TEARING OF THE END

 

The exodus from my four cubits

Is harder for me

Than tearing my poems

To shreds

And scattering them to the winds

 

The ascent of my father’s stairs

Is harder for me

Than reading my poems

Anew

And their flowing in power

 

The parting from black straps

Bound on my left arm and my head

Is harder for me

Than the piercing of my ear

On the doorpost

Of the culture of this time

                                       —Araleh Admanit

                                           tr. EC

 

*

 

RIDICULOUSNESS

 

Said the poet:

I prefer the ridiculousness

Of writing a poem

To the ridiculousness

Of not writing.

 

Said the lover:

I prefer the ridiculousness

Of the love between man and women

To the ridiculousness

Of being alone.

 

Said the believer:

I prefer the ridiculousness

Of faith in G-d

To the ridiculousness of unbelief.

 

And I in my insignificance said:

I prefer the smile

Of the Master of the Universe

To the laugh

Of the Adversary.

                           —Oded Mizrachi

                               tr. EC

 

 *

 

POET ON A DONKEY

 

Out of my wallet I pulled

Four poets —*

Three hundred and seventy

New Israeli Shekels.

 

And I wondered to myself

Whether any present-day poet

Is worth one  plugged

Agurah.

 

Come next generation

Men of the Great Void

Will replace the poets

On the bills of fake money.

 

Nothing will be left

For the next generation

If G-d forbid a poet

Riding on a donkey

Should fail to appear.

                                —Oded Mizrachi

                                    tr. EC                

 *Natan Alterman, Leah Goldberg, Saul Tchernikhovsky, and Rachel, poets of earlier generations, are pictured on the 200, 100, 50 and 20 shekel bills.

 

*

 

FIRST HAKAFAH*

 

Ten winters I sought the tzaddik

in books in graves deep in the middle of the forest

roaring like a wounded beast naked in the mikveh or in the sea

in the spring in the desert in through fasting in the midnight prayer with the burnt out

candle in a hidden and revealed melody in the scream of a still small voice

by rolling in the snow silently whispering combinations of letters

in a filthy cellar in the south in Jerusalem in the hills

in bonfires the fire was not bound in the sentry

box aiming my rifle with eyes closed

in dancing in tipsiness in levelling the glasses of arak

in annulling myself like the dust of the earth roaring

the tsaddik will flourish in his days in stifling chaos on Mount Eval the city of Shechem is burning I want to go in to the tzaddik

In the cave inside the closed gate the table

is set we are all waiting for the quorum grant us

and we will bend the knee to the holy King of the universe

In an emergency I do not breathe

With this ends the first hakafa

                                             —Amichai Chasson (tr. EC)

 

*Hakafah — a procession where the Torah is carried round the synagogue, part of the service for Simchat Torah (Rejoicing in the Law)

 

*

 

THE FLIGHT

 

When we ascend from the plain

The chayot and their image come closer and closer and on their backs

The tree

Covered with the foliage of my ancestral genealogy

My grandfather the kabbalistic tsaddik Rabbi Yehuda Tzvi of Stretin on a galloping ox burning with torches

And that old man in that place Rav Avrutschi

On the eagle flies Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditschev rising up on white wings of lovingkindness

The Lion with Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk in the beauty of a firmament the color of sapphire

The Maggid of Mesritsch Adam with the rainbow halo and radiant inner light

And the Maggid of Zlatschov and the Maggid of Nadborna and the Rabbi of Elik, may their merit protect

Amen

And my mother and sister all who dwell

And I ask them about the will of the Most High and they answer

And we fly together higher than high above the clouds

After all the days have been passed all the achievements achieved all the unions unified and all the crowns spread out

After we have filled our bellies with the Torah of the divine kabbalist Rabbi Yehudah Leib Ashlag

We climb the ladder and the rungs of the ladder higher and higher

The will to receive in order to influence

Ascends and is clear and spread out and arrives

And the worlds of Creation, Formation, Action and Emanation their legs are equal and they stand on the Mount of Olives

And the mystery of Kingdom which is of the nature of Action in the secret of what is written and it will be in the end of days

The Mount of the House of the Lord will be established on top of the mountains

And birds and radiant crowns

We are souls without bodies bodies without souls competing in a circle

And there is no breath and no death and no pain

And all is included and poured forth in one to love

We go up ten stories and the whole galaxy is souls and souls flying the flight of wheels around Him

And the voice of His channels and the voice of His harps and all His songs

And I rest in peace with my fathers and mothers

And my sufferings and longings are also at rest and quiet

And only my will does not end but runs around insatiably

                                                                                    —Chana Kremer

 

*

 

The Bridge
 
We stand on the shores of the river of doubt,
alone, yet close, and we fear the crossing,
for the water roars and rushes out
like a stony gale from a tempest tossing.
 
Afar you speak into the current’s roar,
your voice a thread in thunder.
I reach—but hesitate, for before
I’ve slipped and fallen under.
 
Trust’s bridge is built of simple things:
a glance, a hand extended,
not ended fights or Claddagh rings,
but broken things, amended.
 
So build we not with steel or stone,
but proven vows to stay
A promise made in the darkling night
and kept in the brimming day.

And should this bridge give way to fate,
and we slip through its seeming,
Let not it steal this gift away:

that trust was worth the dreaming.

                                                     —Ashby Neterer

 * 

 

Following the Law

 No, said the holy man, it’s not necessary to accept everything

as true; one must only accept it as necessary (notwendig).

Franz Kafka, Der Prozess

 

The law’s not there to be obeyed.

It has no claim to truth. It’s not

what’s subject to denial, inviting

violation, but what we cannot fail

to bump against in darkest night,

in the retrospective light of day.

 

The law is all we’re subject to,

the evidence of our subjection,

the trace of all that’s powerless

in things, of what can’t be reduced

to the cozy complements of liberty

and destiny, but what was always

there before we ever came to be.

 

The law is there where fascination

reigns, where what we cannot see

is also that from which we cannot

turn away, a land of cannot nots,

the doubled negative negating all

negation, older than perception,

a thing more ancient than cognition

or volition, older even than creation.

 

And though it’s nowhere clearly

written, it never fails to make

a difference, and is in fact that

paradox that differentiation is,

where who I am is one who cannot

choose to feel or not to feel, a thing

all by itself alone, a thing complete,

that might remain indifferent.

 

The law is all we struggle to deny,

and yet this struggle’s our awakening,

the birth of each uniqueness, not

a rule by which we can elect to live,

no truth that we can find or place

that we can occupy or flee, no calculus

of gain and loss, but the terrible

exigency out there that lives right here

within you and in me.

                                 —DB Jonas

 

*

 

LIVING POEM
 
It all rhymes!
I tell you I can hear the chimes
from the highest cathedral steeple
to the lowest impoverished people,
and feel the rhythms of chosen words
in the elk herds and migratory birds,
and the flowing symmetry and syntax
of rivers from Columbia to Halifax!
I hear the heavenly harmonies
in roaring seas and windblown trees,
and read the perfect metered verse
from midwife nurse to horse-drawn hearse,
that range from a sky aglow with stars
to earthbound pilgrims in their cars,
the rushing flow in living seeds I sow,
and remaining here to see them grow,
and the lovely counterpoint of themes
in my sleep or waking wildest dreams!
v

                                                                                          —Elhanan ben Avraham

 

*

 

To Renew Time by Way of Poetry

 

Will it approach, will it almost, for a voiceless

Fleeting moment. We awaited this burden, prophecies

That were never told in this city.

For them. For. A voice to her. To them,

But Mother tongue, what will be with her.

The essence of her life, beneath the snow will bleed:

So do not forget to struggle for your lives.

 

Eternities that don’t let go are murmuring like wounds.

From prolonged sleep, to return the time that awaits:

Redemption lay in wait, a bolt rises from sleep.

The gate and the poem. Rises. Will not return empty-handed.

It is difficult to live in this city without dawn

Lost. Desperate for a comforting breath. The goal

But a step from the branches of the lamp. The oil. So inhaling

From the heart of poetry sneaks, from a dreaming ladder.

 

Not by its force, by its spirit, sign to sign: all

Exposed. Fields. Torches, fire whitened.

Like a strand of hair: from Sartaba to Grofina.*

Like a root, a row, a rabid silence. Its glow

In its oil. Fires. Mother of generations. As of a sudden

Spurts glowing from the mountain belly. Little that’s left:

Dead from generation to generation will ignite a path of light.

Rise for the crescent moon. To shine. In a ritual bath of mystical intent.

In a tunnel of speech, to purify in its mending.

                                                                    —Herzl Hakak

                                                                        Translated by Schulamith C. Halevy

 

*Sartaba, Grofina – stations in a relay of bonfires on mountain tops between Babylon and Jerusalem, signaling the birth of the new moon