8ights poems

If you will listen, really listen, you will hear
my whisper beyond whispers:
      in every waking action and
      in every sleeping pause

If you will listen, really listen, you will hear
my voice guide you clearly:
      you will know my pervasive presence
      you will discover me constantly

If you will listen, really listen, you will know
Me:
you will recall
      what you knew in your first moment and
you will recognize
      what you will know in your last

you will hear
the early and late rains

Posted by Shir-Yaakov שיר–יעקב at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

months and months
consecutive new heights
climbing a holiness ladder
limbs of light
branchings illuminated
learning inside and out’s
limitless unity

last night’s ritual
pre–burial washing
restoration of dignity and kedushah
to a lifeless ninety year–old

arrives defiled,
plastic bagged and intubated
silica   adhesives   liquid   impacted
refrigerated;
rolled to a tiled basement workshop

we prepare
nick the seams of hospital sheets
scream the fabric, rent to rags
small mourning, sackcloth echoes
carrying away and carrying forth
waters

we purify
fingertips thrice washed
latex gloves, coveralls, pull–over boots
disposable

unzipped
his face and genitals are covered
we stand at his head only when necessary
nothing is passed over him
water basins are filled
the mikvah is filled
the rags are filled with blood, waste
the blood is kept

his face is uncovered
I wash his neck
he is turned on his left side
I hold his head
is that a smile thawing?

((thoughts of the deceased’s family
the rawness of loss
my uncertainty at their presence
and my responsibility to them
not to detract from their mourning
to make their comfort as great as possible
and my implications in authoring this))

published two months after authoring, 1 Dec ‘02

Posted by Shir-Yaakov שיר–יעקב at 06:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My fingers are sea green.

Saturated string bled
its blue stain
leeched from a strained
seabed snail.

Threaded through me —
inbetween indigo and
celestial cerulean — a dye
darkened to deepen
a practice of Presence.

spun differently
consistently
winding wound up

math of heaven
knots are far from planar
strands and strings are our maps
marking paths of woven light
the thread cleaving eternal night

the first corner is awkward, unwieldy, rebellious
a mental picture of completion competes with
an imposition of intention
we wish for our first offerings
to result in symmetry, balance

the complexity of one thread
myriad fibers fall over each other
locked into unity by the tension of opposites
unraveled, weakened by too much torion in one direction

knots as five phases of life:
birth
adulthood–bar/mat mitzvah
career/vocation
fruition
death

finite closed loop to open ended infinity
–conversely–
frayed, fractious undifferentiation to unified field

edges

completion of universe through participation in
North–South–East–West symmetry;
being a universal pole,
antipodal inside–outside
the tent of the body

Posted by Shir-Yaakov שיר–יעקב at 05:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)