I
want to
Nay, need to
Must- simply must
Express love deep for you
Aroused by the depths of our trust
‘Tween ashes and ashes; ‘tween dust and dust
Souls float together above the ground and the sky
We spiraling-twirling through gale and gust
Flowing on respect true and lust
One another - pursue
Together - thrust
As birds do
We two
Fly
I love trying out new forms of poetry, and I just discovered the diatelle form via Linda’s lovely poem ‘Rain’, which you absolutely should read for its vivid imagery and flow. I am so appreciative of d’Verse for introducing me to so many fantastic and supportive poets.
Today marks the Jewish holiday of Purim, one major theme of which is the Hebrew phrase ‘nahafokh hu’ (נַהֲפוֹךְ הוּא), which, loosely translated, means ‘it was turned to the contrary’. This comes to us from a particular verse in the Book of Esther (9:1):
Now in the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, on the thirteenth day of the same, when the king’s commandment and his decree drew near to be put in execution, in the day that the enemies of the Jews hoped to have rule over them; whereas it was turned to the contrary, that the Jews had rule over them that hated them;
In short, the Persian king’s advisor Haman (the villain of the story) convinced him to establish a date (the 13th of Adar), upon which all who so wished could kill Jews with impunity, and the Jews would not be allowed to defend themselves.
Without getting into the story, suffice it to say that the king’s decree could not be repealed, for it had been issued with his seal. Rather, the decree was reversed such that the Jews would be allowed to defend themselves against their enemies, as we read on in the following verse in the Book of Esther (9:2):
the Jews gathered themselves together in their cities throughout all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus, to lay hand on such as sought their hurt; and no man could withstand them; for the fear of them was fallen upon all the peoples.
Now, ‘nahafokh hu’ is somewhat more precisely translated: ‘it was turned over’, and Purim has come to be the topsy-turvy Jewish holiday of reversals, in which everything is not what it seems, but rather its opposite. Purim represents the impossible becoming miraculously possible.
The Jerusalem winter skies
In Israel, the winter season is rainy, and the Jerusalem skies fill with clouds, which, in turn, produce some majestic sunsets.
Several weeks ago, my six-year-old and I were returning home from the store in the early evening and Jerusalem’s creamy clouds caught our attention. Not much for photography, I nonetheless put down the groceries and pulled out my smartphone to capture the moment.
The most fantastic aspect of those particular clouds in that particular sunset for me was what they looked like upside down. With a bit of fiddling in Microsoft Paint, I managed to flip the photograph upside down and zoom in on the clouds between the building and lamp post. To my eye, the picture looked just like the setting sun reflecting off of a foamy sea.
sun sparkles on clouds
sea foam glistens overhead
one need only see
d’Verse
Middles & Turns
The d’Verse prompt was to look to our [poems’] middles and see if we can build in dramatic turns, open a new window, pick a sonnet or a haiku, write in blank verse or pentameter, just show us your best turns.
Harkened through the snows of New Jersey,
Heeded through the storms of Cleveland,
Purest nothing, on nothing, absorbed me,
Sheerest nothing, on nothing, I am
Upon nothing, nothing I, one/dering
About nothing, not touched much by snow,
Where nothings, together, not nothing,
Where something within ached to go,
Nothing, listened, through blustery blizzards,
Whispering, nothing, nothing, here I am
Through cold nothing, I heard, I shivered,
Something, mine, called [from] Jerusalem.
The writing challenge: We were to focus on the theme of ‘paradox’ and select one of the following to build poems around, of which I selected #2:
1. Here are some lines from Paul Dunbar’s The Paradox: – select ONE and build your poem around it.
I am thy fool in the morning, thou art my slave in the night.
I am the mother of sorrows; I am the ender of grief;
I am the bud and the blossom, I am the late-falling leaf
OR
2. Take the last lines of Wallace Stevens’ The Snow Man and write a poem that is imbued with the existential paradox implied there. [the meaning of which is the ridding of our usual human observation and viewing winter as a ‘man of snow’ not a snowman! (more HERE)]
For the listener, who listens in the snow, And, nothing himself, beholds nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
Suzette often posts quotes that I connect with, but certainly some more than others. This quote from Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (whom I hadn’t known of) really speaks to me.
In fact, I recently wrote a micropoem about the special silence of the night, which I have scheduled to be published on my Twitter account tomorrow.
It goes like this:
Envelopes night's stillness
Buzzes air stone pump
Empties mind of distractions
Come words in their correct
Order only
at night
Clacks
the keyboard
Such lovely
Lovely silence ~aloneness
Hides moon behind cloud
Understands poetry
perfectly
Itself
“Creativity can only come from silence. If we maintain two minutes of silence every day, then we will see that a whole new dimension of life opens up.”
