Don’t be scared
Of giant weather balloons Or of giant thoughts Or swamping monssons, Of floods that raise you Fed by ocean floor fountains To carve inscriptions On the sides of mountains When you are a lion, You are the footprint of a lion, When you are a meadow You are a dandelion.
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I shake all over with Rossby waves,
But can I ever return to my core, When the aurora borealis remains Cold and closed before Me? I cannot get to the sun, To the light that impels Its sluggish drifting spin, Or extend, past the stinking hells, My hand. My thoughts shake Like the jet stream juddering, And my thoughts tear apart Like the ionized air shuddering, And my mind turns in cyclones Of shame and anticyclones, And I light up my mind And I move my bones, And the light of the sun prickles. In its surging motion, It extends its rays From its magnetized ocean. And all, all, is peace, The polar air and the equator, With the atmospheric undulations, From the seal to the alligator. The light is on, but inside
The light is turning off. Charcoal On our palms streaks the grass, The trees. Because the whole Picture is too bright, the stones Too round, the green too green, Because the freedom of the air And leaves is frightening, the clean Freedom of our eyes, the little bridge. But our return as we reorient, Gives life again to the meadow inside, The birds sing more, our eyes assent. I think (I think!) there are thoughts
That contradict my thoughts, and Down I flutter and I am untrue, I am unmanned, Drunken, lazy layabout. Every contradiction is imagined, is Subject to the rules of time, space And prevailing weather conditions, Ms. Confusion. But it all fits, all in my Skull, or outside of my Skull. This part or that is one wing Flapping, one beady eye Of one crow, a black wing to stretch, Filled with wind, singed with sun, Half a mile in the air, black dots on Blue, without binoculars you would see none, But they float in light, and they Signal, I can barely read it now, It’s a text, I’m sure, it’s Giving and extending, anyhow, To be flying in this blue, For this black to be so bright, It’s a knowing veined with joy Of the clarity of height. When you cannot see the light of
Kindness that, even higher, shines in Its molten core, then life is devastation And all that can redeem the feminine And masculine, the burgeoning engine, Is the husk, the skin, the stain, The lust. Life is a rag, charred limbs, A doll blind, grotesque, beneath the counterpane, A driving wind into a bleak Arctic. And those who are fine discover The light of kindness at its source And they see in beloved and lover Wisdom shining on love, filled With dew. Our galaxies are Vast turmoils of is and not, Dark matter and light, vacuum and star, Boiling forth creation. And life Is precious without any measure, From its home, the bright core, Obscure, the secret forge of pleasure. (And that is all—said the telegram boy-- That I can tell you. My knees gave way As he gave me the message, and before He finished, I staggered away.) What is holiness? Is it
Separation? Is it inclination? The intuition of a light Almost seen, an almost realization…? When that sense, that cry, Swarms within you, Your mind is wonderfully focused And your sinews brilliance, merci beaucoup. And the thought that drives The tenor of your mind finds Itself in resonance to all Thoughts, and it pulls up all the blinds, And you forget no forget-me-nots, But when your mind spills its Elixer of a holy draft, Your thoughts scatter into bits, Each thought wears its neighbor Down, shoves it out of the way, And I grow misty, I forget, I am stumbling with the breakfast tray, When Amalek is wiped away, Everything is clear, nothing forgotten, And every holy name is full, every throne, Everything is one, tied to the dot in The I, memory and sight shine, and I am no longer weak, no longer soft, The hand of God rises, all of my thoughts Are bright as kites carried aloft, Kites in the form of Torah scrolls, Their might like the spring wind Seen through jasper windows By our children who have never sinned. The truly great soul
(That isn’t me) [I know] Is so broad that The entire world couldn’t grow Enough rooms for its Sparks or enough wings For its descents or enough People for its love; kings, Clamorings (I say, that’s My stop, that’s what I Can imagine) [you know your what; What about your why?] It meets another river, It lives another life, its tent Is everywhere, it is not bound To any single continent, (breath) (sigh) it breathes Upon all generations; its Words are always spoken People speak its words in fits, In sleep, in rage and in Love, under bridges, between The living room and kitchen, Soon after turning seventeen. The borders of its life Rise beyond borders that Anyone could feel And in its sleep, at Dawn, someone murmurs its Words, a butter-colored glow Inside a breakfast bowl, Golden as the molten notes of the oboe. Don’t be afraid (of what?)
Of living in a rarified (And sunny?) sunny clime, When you feel that the tide Of your blood is torrid and Sluggish and not worth even a damn, That a charcoal, greasy shadow Is hiding God’s flawless epigram. Because there are no end of Miracles. (Miracles?) Clean Like the sky. On the pathways Of the birds, clear and keen, Everything appears as good (Uh, maybe not in my neighborhood), The soil takes off its sidewalks The hill takes off its hood Beyond thought, which comes To its chain fence And sees but doesn’t get The bright, the immense-- Basically to wrap it all up-- To wrap it all up in one living tie And the wellspring runs, And it doesn’t run dry, Open up the venetian blinds So that the air will pour in, So that the light will swim across the room And angels will bring their next of kin. להרים את הגורל הוא דבר הכי פשוט,
רק שהוא מאחורי הווילון ושם בלוט. ומכל הסמרטוטים, יכולים למצוא כרפס וגם חור וארגמן, והנחה על כל המס. להתעורר אחר שתיה, זה ענין לא סתם פשוט, כי המלצר מביא חשבון, ורואים את העלות. אבל שינה של בהמה, אפילו בתחתית הדור תהפך ברוב שמחה לרצון של אור ודרור. The sweeter the water,
The sweeter the dates. The sweeter the life That proliferates. The well creates the pool, The rain creates the well. And the fresher the rain, The brighter the asphodel. |
Yaacov David Shulman
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