​If you think that your prayers
Changed God’s mind,
Good luck with that!
You’ve been wined and dined

On snails and worms.
Or if you think
That they only changed you,
And impressed their fresh ink

On your forehead
(Or even your heart)
Then you’ve bound it to science
And made it less than art.

When you pray and
Change yourself (for the better)
(We hope), then the universe
(To the letter)

Gets better to you
Too. It’s impressed by
You. Especially your 
Spirit, which rises high

And embraces all things
From east to west,
The Milky Way flows
And the children are blessed.

​Why, we never have to leave--
So you say--
The sweet, sweet light,
Even when the donkeys bray.

Yes, our mind can broaden
Just like that.
Never mind that our deeds grow flabby
And our sour disposition fat,

And our thoughts are crooked
And our makeup lean,
And our speech incompetent
And we’re unfit to be seen,

And we feel our weakness,
And we wail our woe,
Nevertheless—so you say--
We must do what we know

And cleave to the light
At the height of the tree,
And perhaps we can cling
To the best that we see.

If a shadow of dust,
If a curtain of sleep
Descends on our mind
And rank images creep,

You say we should know,
At the core of our core--
And I take it to heart--
That we only want life, the unopened door,

The beginning of love,
Of pleasure, of peace,
Of might and of balance,
An unopened valise.

Our crowded imagination,
Strewn with desire,
After all, carries
An invisible fire.

And if at times we are weak
Or humbled or broken
So our hands do not act
And our words stay unspoken,

That weakness—you say, 
And I take it as given— 
Comes from our will,
When we’re exhausted and driven.

​If only my imagination would be as clear
As a blue coin flipping slowly in the air.
If only my thought were as pure
As the track to the stream of the lumbering bear,

Or my deeds as strong as cords of pine,
My constitution cool as wine,
My yearning for wisdom blue as dawn,
Then I would feel bursting forth in eglantine,

In rivers, cloud-streams and in oak
A single light, a bright vitality
Of engines in each cell, of vortexes
That open up each creature past finality,

So that a roaming light
Would sweetly through this carapace
Fan the fragments of its rays
And strengthen every stolid face.

​My window was so clear
It made the view scintillate,
And I felt the trace of awe
Until it became a dragging weight.

I hid in a soft sweet shadow.
The soccer field, the children racing,
Refracted a light that could not become solid.
As they ran, it too ran, pacing

Their steps. That light was my fruit.
Its taste aroused sweet sorrow.
I turned in the room,
Where the beams of time from yesterday to tomorrow

Gave me the cells of my days.
The longing light within me, 
As I stand upon the kitchen tiles,
Burns beyond boundary.

​My window was so clear
It made the view scintillate
So that the dynamics of the inner law
Began more clearly to resonate.

I hid in a soft sweet shadow.
The soccer field, the children racing,
Reflected a light that could not become solid
But as they ran, it too ran, pacing.

That light was my fruit
I remembered my sweet sorrow
I turned in a room
Where the beams of time from yesterday to tomorrow

Gave me the cells of my days.
But the light within me me burned
Beyond boundaries
And my feet upon the kitchen tiles turned.

​It is hard to balance
My eye with my inner ear.
When I look at the display of comets,
My inner orbits disappear.

To polish the buttons,
To adjust the chandelier,
To clean behind the couch,
To attune the atmosphere,

Requires my full intent.
The Torah has no peer,
Because it is suffused in God,
Heaven and earth cohere,

Soul and world embrace,
When studied in cave and on pier.
The breeze is blended and clement,
From heartland to frontier.

​My body needs iron, and so does my soul.
Without it, they are no longer whole.

In fact, the entire galaxy
Rots from the inside like an blighted tree.

I need a bridge from this world to the next,
Not just a political national text.

Only in spirit does faith find its core,
In the evening sky, the trace of a door.

​Sometimes the individual
Has great demands,
Spiritual or material,
And if they aren’t fulfilled,
Everything is spoiled
And the pillars of the universe
Crumble inside.

How do we perfect the soul?
How do we bolster the bridge
Between two worlds?

A philosophical, Godly,
Mystical, comradely stream
Is the source of the depth of faith.

These are the gifts that nationalism must receive.

When our senses are like glass,
We can see our soul grow full,
Stream and clamber over the banks,
And grant radiance to all. Wool

Is no whiter than our deeds, nor
Snow brighter than our traits, and
Our mind shines. Our soul, strong and
Glad, free and sure, opens her hand,

We are her hand. The details of
Knowing, of feeling of doing,
Believing, intending and wanting,
Are mere small streams; ensuing

From them, floods of light
Tumble and cascade,
Appearing from their source of life
From behind the palisade.

Until the good fills the canals
That had been cracked and dry
We cannot as yet look
At our eye with our own eye.

But when the world will be tipsy
With tipsy steps
And our good will conquer
The plains and steppes,

Of our own free will we will choose 
The good and divine,
Because when we detach
The tree from the vine,

When instinct and freedom
No longer intertwine,
The new birds breathe freely
Below the timberline.

This secret already
Is coming to light
Providing solace
And a glimmer of might,

Not of a man
Who unseeing gains grace,
But a man to whom God 
Speaks face to face.