Like the animals in Noah’s ark
Everything walks by its mate.
There is no Light without Dark.
No Large without Small.
A front and a back to everything.
Hard, Soft. Hot, Cold. Healthy, Sick.
Still, we want to know why
Up is defined by Down.
Joy sits on a seesaw with Grief.
We are Moses on the mountain
begging to behold a Presence;
allowed only a glimpse
as we cower in the cleft of a rock.
Humbled, we climb down,
stone tablets clutched to our chest,
lay them tenderly in the tabernacle
to carry on weary shoulders,
through years in the wilderness,
always pining for the Divine Face
we won’t be permitted to see.
from Itzhak Perlman’s Broken String (Evening Street Press, 2016)
