This was a season of our fathers' joy:
not only when they gathered grapes and the fruit of trees
in Israel, but when, locked in the dark and stony streets,
they held--symbols of a life from which they were banished
but to which they would surely return--
the branches of palm trees and of willows, the twigs of the myrtle,
and the bright odorous citrons.
This was the grove of palms with its deep well
in the stony ghetto in the blaze of noon;
this the living stream lined with willows;
and this the thick-leaved myrtles and trees heavy with fruit
in the barren ghetto--a garden
where the unjustly hated were justly safe at last.
In booths this week of holiday
as those who gathered grapes in Israel lived
and also to remember we were cared for
in the wilderness--
I remember how frail my present dwelling is
even if of stones and steel.
I know this is the season of our joy:
we have completed the readings of the Law
and we begin again;
but I remember how slowly I have learnt, how little,
how fast the year went by, the years--how few.
It is the Harvest Moon! On gilded vanes
And roofs of villages, on woodland crests
And their aerial neighborhoods of nests
Deserted, on the curtained window-panes
Of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes
And harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests!
Gone are the birds that were our summer guests,
With the last sheaves return the laboring wains!
All things are symbols: the external shows
Of Nature have their image in the mind,
As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves;
The song-birds leave us at the summer's close,
Only the empty nests are left behind,
And pipings of the quail among the sheaves.
God of the faithless
and God of the faithful,
with doubt, we come
in loneliness, we wait
silently, we pray
expecting nothing,
wanting everything.
God of the faithful
and God of the faithless,
You, who speak in whispered silence,
You, whose reason is mystery--
Your order is infinite;
remember, we are finite
and need words and reason.
God of the faithless
and God of the faithful
God in all forms and formless
who was, and is, and will be,
hear us and turn.
Each year should be the best year we have yet lived.
Each year we are more learned in the ways of life.
Each year we are wiser than the year before.
Each year our eyes know better the sights to seek.
Each year our ears listen with a finer tuning.
Every happening is a jewel, wrought about the fancy of time.
All that we understand of the universe is the setting for each sight and sound
of day.
The child looks with gladness each year to be one year older.
Should not this welcome pursue us all our years?
The piling of the years is a richness like the piling of gold.
Our years are coins with which we can purchase more wisely at the
bazaars of each new season.
Our love is more pliant and patient having been taught by time.
This New Year is one year older than the last.
The earth is more abounding in its growth.
The creatures have moved another step in their unfolding.
Humankind has left us one more year of art for our contemplation.
History is one year more resonant with lessons.
The sunrises are one year more familiar and promising.
The sunsets are one year less fearful,
and the peace of the night is one year closer.
The moon is dark tonight, a new
moon for a new year. It is
hollow and hungers to be full.
It is the black zero of beginning.
Now you must void yourself
of injuries, insults, incursions.
Go with empty hands to those
you have hurt and make amends.
It is not too late. It is early
and about to grow. Now
is the time to do what you
know you must and have feared
to begin. Your face is dark
too, as you turn inward to face
yourself, the hidden twin
of all you must grow to be.
Forgive the dead year. Forgive
yourself. What will be wants
to push through your fingers.
The light you seek hides
in your belly. The light you
crave longs to stream from
your eyes. You are the moon
that will wax in new goodness.
Wake up. Day calls you
to your life: your duty.
And to live, nothing more.
Root it out of the glum
night and the darkness
that covered your body
for which light waited
on tiptoe in the dawn.
Stand up, affirm the straight
simple will to be
a pure slender virgin.
Test your bodys metal.
cold, heat? Your blood
will tell against the snow,
or behind the window.
The colour
in your cheeks will tell.
And look at people. Rest
doing no more than adding
your perfection to another
day. Your task
is to carry your life high,
and play with it, hurl it
like a voice to the clouds
so it may retrieve the light
already gone from us.
That is your fate: to live
Do nothing.
Your work is you, nothing more.
In the land of words, I stand as still as a tree, and let the words rain down on me. Come, rain, bring your knowledge and your music. Sing while I grow green and full. I'll stand as still as a tree, and let your blessings fall on me.
Some folks ride the train of life looking out the rear,
Watching miles of life roll by and marking every year.
They sit in sad remembrance of wasted days gone by,
And curse their life for what it was and hang their head and cry.
But I don't concern myself with that, I took a different vent,
I look forward to what life holds and not what has been spent.
So strap me to the engine, as securely as I can be,
I want to be out on the front, to see what I can see.
I want to feel the winds of change, blowing in my face,
I want to see what life unfolds, as I move from place to place.
I want to see what's coming up, not looking at the past,
Life's too short for yesterdays, it moves along too fast.
So if the ride gets bumpy, while you are looking back,
Go up front, and you may find, your life has jumped the track.
It's all right to remember, that's part of history,
But up front's where it's happening, there's so much mystery.
The enjoyment of living is not where we have been,
It's looking ever forward to another year and ten.
It's searching all the byways, never should you refrain,
For if you want to live your life, you gotta drive the train.
When they removed the bandages
from Justice's eyes, she had long since
gone blind. She had been too many days
in the dark, too long alone with
the scale in her numb hands; she could
no longer tell the true from the false.
She had stood so many years in the cold
outside the courts, as the law rushed
past, clinging to the sleeve
of power - until the chill
had turned her veins to marble,
her eyes to opalescent stone.
Yet those who tore the veil away
could swear they were being watched,
and though it must have been a bit of glass
that caught a ray of sun, it was not unlike
a bright, appraising eye. Whatever it was,
they felt caught out, ashamed,
and late at night, at home, they locked
their windows tight and slipped into the room
where the children slept, and looking down
on them - for what they couldn't say - they wept.
If God were the sun, then Israel might be the moon,
her face reflecting God's eternal light.
Yes, Israel is like the moon, the moon
who waxes and wanes,
grows old, and then renews herself,
yet never leaves the skies.
Faithfully, she spreads her pale and ghostly light
on every room and tree and blade of grass
Until the whole world turns silver,
transformed from darkness to shimmering beauty.
Yes, Israel, be like the moon,
renew your faith each generation.
Even when the earth casts its shadow of darkness,
faithfully reflect the light of God;
Pour over the whole world
the moonlight beauty of holiness.
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