The Best American Poetry

"For it was the first day of Rosh Ha'shanah. . ."

For I Will Consider Your Dog Molly
by David Lehman

For it was the first day of Rosh Ha'shanah, New Year's Day, day of
       remembrance, of ancient sacrifices and averted calamities.
For I started the day by eating an apple dipped in honey, as ritual required.
For I went to the local synagogue to listen to the ram's horn blown.
For I asked Our Father, Our King, to save us for his sake if not for ours,
       for the sake of his abundant mercies, for the sake of his right hand,
       for the sake of those who went through fire and water for
       the sanctification of his name.
For despite the use of a microphone and other gross violations of ceremony,
      I gave myself up gladly to the synagogue's sensual insatiable vast womb.
For what right have I to feel offended?
For I communed with my dead father, and a conspicuous tear rolled down
      my right cheek, and there was loud crying inside me.
For I understood how that tear could become an orb.
For the Hebrew melodies comforted me.
For I lost my voice.
For I met a friend who asked "Is this a day of high seriousness," and when
     I said yes he said "It has taken your voice away."
For he was right, for I felt the strong lashes of the wind lashing me by
     the throat.
For I thought there shall come a day that the watchmen upon the hills
     of Ephraim shall cry, Arise and let us go up to Zion unto the Lord
     our God.
For the virgin shall rejoice in the dance, and the young and old in each
     other's arms, and their soul shall be as a watered garden, and
     neither shall they learn war any more.
For God shall lower the price of bread and corn and wine and oil, he shall let
     our cry come up to him.
For it is customary on the first day of Rosh Ha'shanah to cast a stone into
      the depths of the sea, to weep and pray to weep no more.
For the stone represents all the sins of the people.
For I asked you and Molly to accompany me to Cascadilla Creek, there being
      no ocean nearby.
For we talked about the Psalms of David along the way, and the story of
      Hannah, mother of Samuel, who sought the most robust bard to remedy
      her barrenness.
For Isaac said "I see the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for
      the offering?"
For as soon as I saw the stone, white flat oblong and heavy, I knew that
     it had summoned me.
For I heard the voice locked inside that stone, for I pictured a dry wilderness
      in which, with a wave of my staff, I could command sweet waters to flow
      forth from that stone.
For I cast the stone into the stream and watched it sink to the bottom where
      dozens of smaller stones, all of them black, gathered around it.
For the waterfall performed the function of the chorus.
For after the moment of solemnity dissolved, you playfully tossed Molly into
      the stream.
For you tossed her three times, and three times she swam back for her life.
For she shook the water off her body, refreshed.
For you removed the leash from her neck and let her roam freely.
For she darted off into the brush and speared a small gray moving thing
      in the neck.
For this was the work of an instant.
For we looked and behold! the small gray thing was a rat.
For Molly had killed the rat with a single efficient bite, in conformance
    with Jewish law.
For I took the rat and cast him into the stream, and both of us congratulated
    Molly.
For now she resumed her noble gait.
For she does not lie awake in the dark and weep for her sins, and whine about
     her condition, and discuss her duty to God.
For I'd as lief pray with your dog Molly as with any man.
For she knows that God is her savior.

-- 1980
from Operation Memory by David Lehman (Princeton University Press, 1990)

It Dawns On Me, or: Fun from Day 1, by Todd Boss

My bedside clock reads 1:58AM and sure enough: down in the moonlight stands my inner poet, drunk with dreams, lightly knocking at my outer door, his gardening duds on. I put coffee on for him, and we will sit together in silence awhile… 

I’m thinking how richly comic it is that in the Genesis poem, God stocks the earth with biology on Day 3, then plants the sun, moon, and stars on Day 4. The sun, moon, and stars are “to mark days, seasons, and years,” and yet haven’t we been marking days since Day 1 (Chapter 1, verse 1)? 

Here Comes the Brain Again, or: But Does It Scan? by Todd Boss

That there could be a heaven even in the imagination seems a proof of redemption.

Neuroscience is determined to prove human brains analogous to computers, and soon no educated Bio 101 student will have any reason to believe in the existence of a “soul” unless the poor kid’s religious. (Why do we love? Look at the scan: pleasure centers here, here and here.) A nation of individuals who see themselves as soulless—what a hell that’ll be.

God is Such a Child, or: My Inner Dimmer, by Todd Boss

I don’t really read blogs. Opinion is much overrated. Peace, in my experience, is opinion-averse.

And yet here I’ve been invited to contribute to the Babelsphere and further disturb the peace—only allow me, please, not “posts,” but meditations. Musings made in the wee hours, between two and four in the morning, daily for a week.

Seven days: but what is “seven” and what are “days”? Already I’m a subject of the sun, the moon, the currents of creation.

Seven meditations on creation, then. Let them begin.

"A Woman of Worth" [by Joy Katz]

A Woman of Worth
                                                  Proverbs 31

A woman of worth who can find?
For her province is far above rubric.

A woman of wood, hooks, and rind.
The forks have gone suddenly ruthless.

The hearth of her husband,
husk of her --

She does him good, she evolves.
Dislodges God the last days of her life.

A woman of words: who could mind?
So what if her rupees surprise us.

She is fond of her housefly,
her housefly is cloned with garnet.

She consoles a friend yet bests him.
The fruit of her hands is vincible.

A woman of wound who can find?
She gilds her lawn in streaks, makes song her law.

Her hands hoist the splendor, the spilt.
She strews her hands toward the pool.

“A woman at war with her mind.”
“Her parlance is totally useless.”

She counts singers in fields, and bison.
Steak and doubloons in her cloud chamber.

She opens her mouth: hysteria.
Its likeness on her tongue.

A woman reorders, combines.
Chills rise up into her breast, blessing the husk also, singing:

Favor is false and beauty is vain,
flavor is pulse and bedding is vale.

This woman yet fears the Lord, praise her.
Praise the wood, praise the intimate grain.

-- Joy Katz

Seven reasons / Psalm 147 [Rachel Barenblat]

SEVEN REASONS (PSALM 147)

You rebuild your city with our hands
and gather our scattered sparks.
You darn the heels of our hearts
and comfort us with bandages.

You smear sunrise across the heavens
like raspberry jam
and coax every blade of grass
to emerge from the dark comfort of soil.
And you love our fragility
not our particle physics
nor the bridges we labored to plant
across the inlets your glaciers carved.

You lay down ice like glass
and frost like lace on our windowpanes
and then you breathe a January thaw
and our frozen places melt.

This creative rendering of psalm 147 owes much to zen abbot Norman Fischer's interpretive translations of psalms. Though I intentionally didn't look at his book before working on this poem, his work has had a profound impact on my approach to the psalms -- including this one, which is part of the daily liturgy. (I've written more about that at Velveteen Rabbi; you can read that analysis here if you're interested.)

[sevenreasons.mp3]

In the dark [by Rachel Barenblat]

IN THE DARK (VAYESHEV)

The mysterious unnamed man
is always a messenger
sent to keep our story moving
in the right direction.

The appropriate answer
is always hineni, here I am
ready for whatever pitch
is up God's sleeve.

Into the pit, out of the pit
from slavery into service:
descent always contains
the seeds of ascent.

He had to be enslaved
in order to be accused
had to be accused
in order to be imprisoned

had to be imprisoned
in order to hear the dreams
of the cupbearer and the baker
which "surely God can interpret"

had to interpret dreams
in order to sire Freud
a few hundred generations
down the ancestral line.

But the cupbearer forgets
leaving Joseph in the dark
as the longest night of the year
threatens to swallow us whole.

---

Since last winter, I've been writing Torah poems -- poems which arise out of the weekly Torah portion -- and posting each week's poem to Velveteen Rabbi. (I plan to collect these into a manuscript; if you're a publisher who might dig a collection of midrashic poems, do let me know.) This week we're in the Torah portion called Vayeshev, the beginning of the "Joseph novella" -- one of my favorite sections of the Hebrew scriptures.

The Joseph story has everything: scheming brothers, prophetic dreams rife with poetic symbolism, mysterious strangers, descent into pits both literal and metaphoric. There's that multicolored tunic, famed in song and story (and symbolic in its own right: think of how clothing can disguise as well as reveal.) Plus there's the story of Judah and Tamar, an interlude which mirrors the Joseph story's themes of identity, disguise, and "descent in order to ascend," a classical Hasidic notion. And then there's Potiphar and his lecherous wife, and Joseph's imprisonment which sets the stage for his redemption, just as the eventual enslavement of the Israelites will set the stage for their -- our -- redemption writ large.

This year we're reading Vayeshev as the days tick down to the solstice, which gives the tale added poignancy. The days are getting darker, but a turn is coming which will hook our sonnet in a new direction.

Poem cross-posted, with different commentary, to Velveteen Rabbi.

Freud's Story on Yom Kippur

Two enemies were reconciled before Yom Kippur.  After Yom Kippur was over one said to the other, "Well, I wish you everything that you wish me." "Starting again already?" the other replied.

-- sdh

Abe says man you must be puttin me on

Abe says man you must be puttin me on

God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"

Abe says, "Man you must be puttin' me on"

Compare to "Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest" (Genesis, 22:2).

In Dylan’s lines the key word is the vernacular "Man" cutting god down to size. The god in Dylan's song is a diminished thing reigning over a diminished universe. Any son will do for the desired sacrifice. Note the sacred individuality of the biblical Isaac: "thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest."

You can do what you want Abe, but

The next time you see me comin' you better run

Compare to the biblical Abraham: "God will provide" (Genesis 22:8). God, all action no talk, makes no threats. Abe has faith equal to doubt. The rest is silence.

But now we're on highway 61, the dawn of a noisy new age, 1961, with a handsome new president and a short-lived new frontier, it's over and we're visiting, revisiting if not revising it, and JFK has given way to LBJ how many kids did you kill today -- it's time for VIETNAM -- and Abe, successor to honest Abe, who freed the slaves -- Abe clears his throat:

Abe say "Where do you want this killing done?" '

God say "Out on Highway 61."

And God directs traffic.

And grammar go out window.

And young Isaac is not content with observing the fire and wood and noting the absence of the lamb for the offering.

Young Isaac doesn't want to work for Maggie's brother no more.

He is tired of working for the white man boss and when he thinks of the stream he wants to cross to cool his feet in the heat of a summer day he thinks of death, gambling, and the Mississippi River.

He is tired of bullshit friends who have a lot of nerve and just want to be on the side that's winning.

He has done his share of quarreling in the captain's tower. He has read all of F. Scott Fitzgerald's books. And he knows what is happening (the vandals took the handles) though he doesn't know something is. A strange man, Mr. Jones, Isaac Jones that is.

-- DL

Welcome, LJE

Starting today, Lawrence J. Epstein will file periodic reports on Bob Dylan. Larry writes about American culture and Jewish life.  His most recent books include The Haunted Smile: The Story of Jewish Comedians in America, Mixed Nuts: America’s Love Affair with Comedy Teams, and At the Edge of a Dream: The Story of Jewish Immigrants on New York’s Lower East Side, 1880-1920. Jenny Factor, our West Coast Correspondent, has referred more than once to the last mentioned.

Welcome aboard, LJE! I hope that in one of your posts you will talk about the opening of "Highway 61 Revisited" in relation to the chapter in Genesis that is its source. This re-telling of Abraham's "binding" of Isaac reminds me a little of Wilfred Owen's poem in which the massacred soldiers of World War One are the victims of a bloodthirsy god and an obedient Abraham on Mount Moriah. But Dylan's version is more sardonic and more ambiguous. What do you think?

-- DL