(From Homepage)
Elul
By Devora Levin
Elul
I love you, but,
who is I and who is You in this,
the story, the song.
In the beginning there was
belief and a vision.
Then, sundry things,
the way hair is parted and
who is speaking to whom and
the way limbs ache in the morning and
infinite odds and ends
flotsam and jetsam
perpetual memory.
I and You apart until the shock –
revolt of limbs and thought.
Failed messiahs.
Love is all there is when
the body of a dream dissolves.
Sitting alone on a hillside lit by the moon, I see
You, from the cool blue shadow.
You are fire-grand, alive and bigger,
bigger than anything I know.
Is this love?
Insert me into a poem.
I am a word rising – a vapour.
Keep my soul, now and forever,
my Life.
-----
Yesterday, I peered inside my prayer book and saw
Temple ruins and the litter of millennia.
Today, I approached the stars, looking
for a compassionate place to rest.
They respond achingly, with the hard edges of night
that surround them.
Stand with your feet on the ground and
pillow your yearnings against this enormous canopy—it closes
against you.
The ancient dirt consumes the stars, as it does all mortal beings.
Tonight, I watch it inhale the sky, and the next moment,
a glittering town—life of the world to come.
