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Posts Tagged ‘poetry’

The secret to a loving marriage, Rumi style

Posted in WEDDINGS!, tagged , , on May 24, 2017| Leave a Comment »


Their Secret Was
Jalal al-Din Rumi, 1207 – 1273

A married couple used to come see me once in
a while. Among the many I knew who were wed,
they appeared the most happy.

One day I said to them, “What marital advice
could you offer to others that might help them
achieve the grace you found?”

And the young woman blushed and so did her
husband; so I did not press them to answer.
But I knew.

Their secret was this: That once every day, for
an hour, they treated each other as if they were
gods and would, with all their heart, do anything,
anything, their beloved desired.

Sometimes that just meant holding hands and
walking in a forest that renewed their souls.

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Losing God in the backseat of a Buick LeSabre (genesis 29)

Posted in Authors, Divrei Torah (teachings on the Torah), Jewish, tagged , on January 8, 2015| Leave a Comment »


Rachel and Jacob meet at the well.

Rachel and Jacob meet at the well.

When Rachel met Jacob at the edge of the well,
in that moment of their salty union,
did she divine that like the well,
there would now be no bottom to her pain?
The love.
The hate.
The separation each fortnight like the shearing of a lamb? The sons that would grasp and clamp in terror as they slid down her womb, leaving her gait forever off-kilter; like a clay plate that the Cosmic Potter could never again make lie flat.

Oh Potter of my youth; I think you forgot to warn me about the pain.
Remember? That last time we were together in the back seat of that yellow Buick LeSabre, turned brown by all those years of dangling children and muddy soccer cleats? That was the last time my soul still imagined it knew where to find you.

But your salty lips, too, stayed silent. Of course you could not have warned me. Losing my dream of you was the last act, and then, the grand entrance, to adulthood.

The heart is weak.
It can lose but one sweet fantasy at a time,
lest it break completely.

 

+ genesis 29

 

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Yehuda Amichai, Sabbath Lie

Posted in Jewish, tagged , , on November 11, 2014| 1 Comment »


On Friday, the twilight of a summer day

While the smells of food and prayer rose from every house

And the sound of the Sabbath angels’ wings was in the air,

While still a child I started to lie to my father.

“I went to another synagogue.”

I don’t know if he believed me or not.

But the taste of the lie was good and sweet on my tongue

And in all the houses that night

Hymns rose up along the lies

To celebrate the sabbath.

And in all the houses that night

Sabbath angels died like flies in a lamp,

and lovers put mouth to mouth,

Blew each other up until they floated upward,

Or burst.

And since then the lie has been good and sweet on my tongue

And since then I always go to another synagogue.

And my father returned the lie when he said:

“I’ve gone to another life.”

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