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I. In Keeping with the Whole
In the Season of In Between
On the brink of October, the warm air is on the edge of cool, the blue sea is a flash of winter green.
Beneath the bight orange pumpkin moon the leaves are in between, half in, half out of summer. In the season of rose hips, apples purple grapes, bittersweet berries, lighter or deepening, are all caught in Heisenberg’s strange uncertainty.
The magenta edges of the oak, the tips of the maples are red and gold, dipped in Autumn’s brush, they are still green, though there is no turning back caught in the rush of one season to the next.
I awake from a dream and for an instant I have lost my bearings,. Nothing is black and white, neither here nor there, all things either or,. every blessing mixed, all things more or less, simultaneously both after and before,
both moving out of and turning into, hovering in the limbo of something and something else, and all the world becoming, moving in and out of in between. —Roberta Chester
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FOR THE BANYAN TREES AT KIBBUTZ EIN GEDI
Sacred to millions in foreign places, *
IN EARLY SPRING, Guo Xi (Song Dynasty 960 - 1279)
Ink on darkened silk, mountains in clouds of dream. Weight against space balances rising, narrowing, hanging over emptiness. The Painter denies the necessity of gravity for the presence of trees.
Following The Way rising and falling occur together.
See how the water pours down, narrow, widening in descent and there, roofs like little hats on pavilions, tucked so deliciously in. He's made them small-- you have to look carefully--in keeping with the whole.
At the base, on either side, tiny fishermen prepare to take out their boats, for it is spring.
Above it all floating beside the mountain a poem whose brush strokes compliment the Painter's skill. Two become one. The stamped red seals, discreetly harmonious. The big one at the top, perhaps the Painter's mark the fainter small ones on the side collectors' records of their travel here.
I have no seal to mark my travel but this morning some grief, lodged in me is soothed by walking here. — Katharine Gregg
Early Spring (早春圖) Guo Xi (郭熙, active 11th century), Song Dynasty (960–1279). Hanging scroll, ink and light color on silk, 158.3 x 108.1 cm, National Palace Museum, Taipei
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Katsura Garden
Where to put the first rock? And then, where to put the next one? And the next? —Marian K. Shapiro
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Action and Change
The all-day rain has made its mark. Earthtones give way to what approaches fluorescence, a green resulting from a pent-up wintery county wide half-sleep. The cold is over. A slight dropping slope almost tumbles but thinks better of it because nothing today will test those elastic creek beds in such steadiness. The wait ends quietly.
And the change becomes inevitable in hindsight, no scuffles now, no shelter needed. Yesterday the sun began setting farther north between a magnolia and water oak. By summer it’ll miss the pond altogether as it lands behind the northwestern woods. Gutters rattle clear the layers of skin from water halls. Funny, the self-evidence of action. It was always going to be. —L. Ward Abel
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Bluebells
As we pull into the parking lot of Three Creeks Metro Park, I am hoping that these trails may be where my son could decide to unglove his heart. It’s spring, the season of perhaps, for it’s been winters of stagnancy and dark thoughts. I know the way to the confluence and we stand together along the bank where Blacklick, Big Walnut and Alum Creeks converge their muddy, rhyming waters as they make their way to the Scioto, the Ohio, the great Mississippi and then on to the Gulf of Mexico. We bend our gaze. He tells me that he wants to jump right in and float away to see where the water will take him. I say, that’s the truth that lives in tributary. We walk together some more, this time alongside Blacklick Creek, our faces in the water among schools of shadows, a flotilla of ducks, the ballet of dragonflies. We’re heading to Bluebell Trail where I want him to be in the midst of the gossamer sheen, a stunning sea of azure. More than a mile of woodland magic, thousands and thousands of blue bell-shaped flowers, their clusters glowing within the greenery. Folklore says look for the fairies that live there. I see he may be welling up. I say it feels like a cathedral, the vast columns of tall trees reaching to the heavens. He nods. The rest of the trail back to the parking lot fills with the slow rhythm of our rhyming footsteps. It’s spring. The season of perhaps. —Rikki Santer
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[untitled]
From year to year the rain finds it harder to overcome climate change, from year to year it struggles on and finally gets through and arrives, falls and pelts down, like my joy, like suddenly this happiness. —Hamutal Bar-Yosef (tr. EC)
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THE BLUEBIRD
The last time I saw a bluebird was in the mid 2000’s.
It was early August. I was crossing a field in some Audubon tract.
A trail scythed its way through long grass. Bird boxes stood out like highway motels for rare summer visitors.
Perched on a rickety wooden fence, remnant of an old farm, was where I spotted that avian treasure.
Its heartbeat ruffled the feathers of that sienna chest. And its pastel head and wings mirrored the horizon’s rim of sky.
I did not dare approach. Bluebirds are hounded enough by other birds. They don’t need my intrusion.
For as tender as my intentions are, I still look like harm to some.
I did not know at the time that I would not see another bluebird up to and including the time when I am composing this.
But think of this poem as a bird box. It is written in hope. —John Grey
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In the Garden
No words, silence, breath, and listening to wind through leaves Then stunned by a fragrance Of acacia trees that reaches me from far away in Givat Ze’ev No bells in the sound of leaves but a silvery tune This pleasure a song I suddenly remember From the last time
Tiferes she b’Tiferes is the last day I counted Too far away for the wind, the clouds are sun-dappled like leaves On my avocado trees whose pleasure lies in the fruits I love to eat Unlike the acacia whose flowers hang heavy with a scent too sweet for this world Their blossoms clustered like bells in the landscape of my morning prayers Fragrance of black letters on white in my siddur
Acacia wood built the Mishkan in the desert Where I heard bells on the hem of the Kohen Gadol Where pleasure infused his every motion I am the last generation before Mashiach Whose fragrance reaches me Though another wind conspires to carry him off
The pleasure of this moment in the garden Hearing the silvery tones of bells From the far-off acacia Its fragrance coming to infuse all the world In these last days we wait Stand transfixed in the wind that carries sound and scent
A trim of golden pomegranates and bells on one’s hem The other-worldly fragrance That graces acacia trees A gentle wind that stirs their leaves A pleasure so rich and deep It can last forever —Varda Branfman
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The Immortal Garden not the magnificents of manors clipped in plan and design but the small one I sowed
by tossing seeds
and waiting
I can’t picture
which garden though Some Springs there was flax, the new blue to wash away winter’s gray skies Delphiniums, dolphin named, purple and azure waterspouts onto land with baby’s breath like a bridal shower forget-me-nots the blue-eyed bower for all the young year’s dreams
When I can only see at the edge of my eye some splashes of gold, blues, red and green
peaceful like a
warm sun smiling at me
—Susan Oleferuk *
Late Rain
Like a cactus flower suddenly in bloom Like a snail slowly gliding after an unexpected late rain that broke the early sharav, The People of Israel say out loud: Am Yisra’el Chai! We are still alive! Like a flamingo standing on one leg among the wild cranes and cormorants in the waters of the Huleh Lake in the northern Galilee, The People of Israel declare: We will survive! To be a people, proud and free, And all the rivers still run to the sea — Brenda Appelbaum-Golani May 2025
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And Mostly of Dasha
This is the end of an uncommon day dusk by the Charles a November hour Fading the eye is given to hold a scene across the sky as Turner might have painted Streaming above us rose-colored clouds sheer veils adorning a rounded ivory-glazed moon
I want to hold our looking on this evening’s brilliance together as we stepped out of the hotel away from the gathering of grown-old children of the Shoah I want to hold the affection of hands taking mine and mostly of Dasha’s—the strength of her grip small frail wouldn’t let go —Reizel Polak
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Not Yet
At times I wonder, “Will this year be my last?”
Spring, with her lemony forsythia Followed by tiny butter cups appear first Next comes a burst of yellow and Purple pansies, and riotous multiflora Roses with their heady scent and, of Course, myriad leaves adorning the trees No, it is not yet my time
Then as spring progresses into Summer, and the multifloras Begin to fade, the nearby pond Calls to me, as well as the peep Frogs and owls heard while Star-gazing by an open fire No, not yet
And then the fall, cool and crisp With leaves changing to gold and Crimson, then fading to brown as they Dance to the waiting earth, while the Chipmunks and squirrels scurry to Gather and stash Mother Oak’s acorns No. It is not now
Then as the cold wind blows and diamonds Hang from white pine needles, and glittering Snow mounts up in the yard, I’m drawn outside to Track the prints of foxes and deer; and despite the Aching of my frozen knees and fingers, I finally Recognize that I have much more life in me No. It is not my time —Dawn McCormack
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Thunder is just a sound To those who have no God, But we can hear His Word
Behind the rumbling cloud And see His flash of light Whence creation first occurred,
And we ignore the crowds Who neither hear nor see, Who live and die absurd. —David B. Weiser
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NASCENT BLOSSOMS
Little white dots coming into focus against a background of the vast, brilliant blueness of the morning sky. Fine shoots, like a child’s fingers reaching for his mother; fine shoots, decorated with white nascent blossoms, grasping upward at the late winter sunlight. And the blossoms, fulfilling their eternal struggle for life, despite the cold of this Jerusalem morning. It is a symbol of hope of a beautiful fulfillment for a future, imminent and inevitable. And as we notice this annual miracle, we too look upwards, sensing the light, the beginning of creation, and the power of its creator. It is He who has brought us this, This harbinger of the approaching season; a season witnessing the land’s rebirth, signaling the continuity of the thread of life. This image of birth and new beginning resonates deeply within the historical soul of a Jew, recalling for us the emergence of our nation, on a past and future day of nascent blossoms. —Don Kristt
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