The late Mr. Paddington, he never was on time.
His favorite fruit was cherry, and his favorite sport was crime, His favorite game was soccer, and his favorite season fall, He lay beneath the awning as his bony legs did sprawl. That day, he saw a lizard slip into a crack, a slight Sliver of volcanic rock; its tail whisked out of sight. The space inside was hot and dark, the lizard stood stock still, A spider moved on silent legs; the lizard felt a thrill. Outside, the wind was blowing on a gnarly sycamore, As down the block a little boy, he slammed the wooden door, And walked by Mr. Paddington, a book beneath his arm. A milk truck trundled past him, coming from the dairy farm. And through the window of a house, he saw gesticulate A sallow man who swiftly rocked above a china plate. Around him curved a solid wave of comrades, men who sang A song that stole into his ears, in which it softly rang. Then gravel muttered in his soul, the blade it softly sang The pull of money and of want. He heard its metal clang. The padding Mr. Paddington behind him slowly stepped, The sallow man behind the window danced with steps that crept. The yellow flowers and the red upon the sober street, The airplane flying high above, upon its way to Crete, The coral on the ocean floor, the sea anemone, The fish the color of the sun or green as Indian tea, Pluto frozen on its round, dipping low and wide, Sweeping into Neptune’s blue, upon its oval ride. And Boston sighed, the sidewalk hard, the mayor lost and cold, And Paddington, he swept along and contemplated gold, As women--mothers, sisters too--wept of their intent To keep their men—their husbands, sons--inside the horse-hair tent. The river swept between the canyon’s rugged, sun-pink walls And prayers swept like jagged scraps of half-scraped saber scrawls. In the realm of lack, of want, there’s no one who is smart, But people only follow down the valley of the heart. The prayer of pneumatic drills, it breaks the old concrete Until the workman’s hands that shake are filled with mystic heat.
1 Comment
Prayer, crying out and repentance from the depth of the heart, and the revelation [of that repentance] in actuality through rectified deeds, must precede the appearance of the light of supernal attainment.
Only by means of the revelation of the light of repentance, which is something that renews the face of the entire world, can any truly significant literature come into being and appear in the light of life within this world. Shmoneh Kevatzim 1:719 Sometimes a person can only raise himself from his lowly state by writing down what is in his heart. With that, he rectifies the internal blemishes that were brought about his physical inclinations.
“Then I said: Behold, I come with the scroll of a book that is written on my behalf; My God, I desire to do Your will, and Your Torah is within my innermost being” (Psalms 40:8-9). Shmoneh Kevatzim 6:34 |
Yaacov David Shulman
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