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Eleven Poems ADJUST
for the eyes to adjust & the darkness become
visible past woods' edge a shadow moves the trees
are simply trees with opaque intensity knee high thin
blanket of fog over the mowed field a friend
carries with him horrible vivid memory of a similar
place another walks here ecstatic it being this simple
TORAH
every day when i arise i carry the torah
bear it aloft for the torch that it is
carry it burning & unconsumed into the darkness of
the day unable to find a temple i keep
alive the memory of the Temple destroyed the torch
becomes the ash the blossom of my father's bones
SWEET
in sweet time take your own sweet time not
definitely not yours to take taken by severed by
the blade of fact that sharpened cimitar sweet in
an odd way taken by cut by the nick
you flow from & if you think & all
do moving upon no awareness required that generative abyss
GROUND
upon a governing ground of emptiness graves neighborhood of
familiars by one or pairs embraced by a defining
wall our kind here a phrase or two birth
& death date & the groundskeepers mowing & trimming
& watering an oasis of basic conditions beside the
rapid traffic moving & building upon the governing ground
DISSOLVES
to sing then in this sudden Norman Fischer / Psalms 13 opening to you
savoring before the day dissolves knowing this full gratitude
on the edge of a beginning day to sing
then as the holy kadosh kadosh itself dissolves into
the cacophonous light invisible place where each thing happens
that emptiness unknowable face of your immediate gathering affirmation
WAR
once the attorney general's memo con doned systematic tor
ture the war was over we had no ground
to stand on a child will lead us but
not now we were a happy people convinced of
our own best intentions we had perfected a new
generation of zoos with perfectly natural habitats hot damn!
WAKE
will not talk will not talk at all until
will not say to another will not until begin first by returning begin by a deliberate return to
the word wake to the day wake by entering
a psalm wake into silent reading wake into saying
you wake into a gate way be holding day
TURNING
coffee dawn light eyes turn into the word wake
slowly awake to deliberate a word at a time
waves arrive wake deliberately to determined slow movements of
the writing hand will not tell at all until
eyes move slowly along the chosen words a rising
symphony of the busy eyes turning to this world
PHARAOH
tell old pharaoh but the people don't know they
are in his clutches tell old pharaoh but this
one doesn't go by that name tell old pharaoh
to let but there is no sensible place no
podium from which to petition him must find a
way to tell old pharaoh let our people go
DAWNING
you have turned away from the miracle here you
may return hear slow to kin ship with ad
here a turning back to toward what is always
waiting too late by middle of day too late
to hear it or to see it the pleasure
of recognition at dawn a dawning here it is
SUSTAIN
to bring it up to bring it back up
if the early morning in fact is not a
descent into clarity to bring it back up to
hold up to sustain this deliberate thinking well into
the day that would be a walking zen a
light & a chorus here among the every day
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