Every soul, great and small,
Stands in its own light, Neuron upon neuron, Synapse upon dendrite, The ones who are small, Dim and black, muted And weak, obscure, And how they are transmuted, How they are raised From the rotting straw By the light of kindness, On a street dappled in awe, Because of those whose words Rise to the heaven of manna, And dew beads upon leaves And roots drink from the Susquehanna. Who says, “My words rise”? And his bones tremble, He is not afraid, it is true, God will not allow him to dissemble.
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A holy fire, heat
Baking inside, along hot Wire veins, a yearning Blaze in every hollow and knot, A gift of fire, a burning altar, A spilling of orange coals Across a psalter, igniting The valleys and knolls, Following the movments Of the wildcat, the supple sway, The deep eyes, the free mind, The night of eyes at midday, The heart is glad, it beats In the grasses, in the mud Along the river where the snipe Rejoice along the fertile flood. Inside me, perhaps
The axilla, a node Or capillary, is a row Of fir trees, a road Curving up a hill, Shining under the weak Light behind a blur Of clouds, pale, oblique, The light turns firm, More sure, more warm, Our steps are slow, The shrubs, the gravel uniform, Sometimes there is a snap, Lightning crinkles, disappears, A cold rain wakes us up, Hisses and grumbles in our ears. There are prayers carved
Into shapeless lumps, or Carved with broken noses and Jaws swollen with the mumps. They sit upon and crack The chair where all of our Souls sit. Pure, Divine Thoughts and feelings scour The continents, decency Pervades, thoughts wear Tuxedos or bolo ties, And we lift in the air. But in these images of air, We carve out of focus hands, Eyes, creatures hard to identify, With sorrowful, chestnut bands, They confuse the sky with Curlicues and shadows, until A chill, wet wind whips, Clouds crackle, a soul grows ill, The sea heaves gray and green, Vertiginous and driving rain, No sky, no horizon, A dissolution on the windowpane, And the light grows dim, The stars twist into smoking Wisps, the sun is a dull Thumbprint, the croaking Of the swinging pasture gate, The child left on the porch, The old man lying in bed, The mother in the woods with a torch, Until the light will come and Turn the texture of the dark And the blind can see And walk in the gold-green park. |
Yaacov David Shulman
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October 2019
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