When the illumination is Vested

שנה טובה

on this day, when the book opens,
you must eat apples,
how proud and Miltonian of us Jews,
to remember the taste of knowledge
and biting into (with a full
luscious will) its sweetness
each year after
commencement dawning,
each life sprung off its hinges
like rainbow trout
creaking like larkspur
and lavender in oaken rods
and willow winds. winnowing
sparrows and fly-fishermen
out to catch the one that swallowed
the line, or the lie. heaven
is here. where sleepers go
to slurp pale the dying
the eye of majestic and earthly
circumstance. I know
that drunken penmanship at the gate
a sinful life is only never being
sorry for missing the right road,
and I know how dry the river bed
has gone, like crickets and lightning bugs
once the frost creeps on. I love holy.
come with me, to the comb then,
and the fuzzy striped yellow-jacketed
honey makers, take this promise
and drink in the toothsome and cloying nectar.
Shine up this year on its birth-bed,
like copper and shake it like bells,
give it green meadows and
stargazer skies, blue and un-dented praise
un-fendered or measured, just
open, open, opening wider.
Tell the angels they're invited
to this land, my dark wilderness
this territory of the book called sweetly
in tongues that crown the temple
ear to ear, the whispers
of ravens or magpies: this place
sounds like home and the listening earth.
 

Reviews

[Emily B]

your words remind me of all the reasons I loved poetry to begin with . . .

[Ed Hart]

i am addicted...