The terror of these words is that they’re a waste.
What have I given to God, and what
have I not lost in return? My daughter,
my wife, my Temple? My priesthood, city,
nation? As a child I went to the water
and looked up. I knew someday I’d see wheels,
four wheels, four animals and four faces,
wind from the north and a fiery cloud,
so many faces and wings and odd feet,
some twisted combination of human
and animal all braided together
and moving as one, a single coiled whirlwind.
And I knew as a boy that, as they spun,
their wings would sound like water, would sound like
the drumming din of civilization,
like the droning sound of brooding Shaddai.
And eventually I did see it,
brilliance and sapphire, fire and semblance.
But what has left since that throne arrived,
what have I gained for one look at the wordless?
Dust. Dirty water. Forgetting. Death. Death.
Told to bake dung into cakes and eat it.
Told to eat bitter words that burn my eyes.
Told to see JerusalemLit. City of peace From the time of David to the Roman destruction, Jerusalem was the capital of Israel and the spiritual and governmental center of the Jewish people. During the long exile, Jews longed to return to Jerusalem and wrote poems, prayers, and songs about the beloved city. In 1967, with the capture of the Old City, Jerusalem was reunited, becoming "the eternal capital of Israel." Still, the longing for peace is unfulfilled. like some toy.
Told to rail against Sidon and Tyre.
Told to dream of the Temple but never
return, the water there and ShekhinahThe feminine name of God, expounded upon in the rabbinic era and then by the Kabbalists in extensive literature on the feminine attributes of the divine.,
and told to write it down in tears. In tears
and broken-hearted for my emptied mind
that has cost me everything but death.
What lonely years, so consumed with a thing
that I knew was difficult, impossible,
but that I thought would burn bright in the end,
that my family would see it, and understand.
What a world we’ve made of God’s world, a world
in love with separation and exile,
scattering, divorce, brokenness and silence –
my wife, my child, my wife and child’s faces.
I am broken-hearted at forty-three.
I am white-chested at forty-three.
I am forty-three and tired of memory.
I am tired of passion and inspiration.
I am tired of all that has broken me.
I have no people and my God makes me mourn.
Where are the songs of the Temple? Where is
the timbrel and lute, harp and lyre? Where are
just ten of us, doing what ten can do?
Where is the joy I took in the glory of God?
