My Greatest Teacher

What happens to what
    I remember?

What happens to
    the vain strivings,
    the tears,
    the triumphs,
    the moments
        of clarity?

Of what use
    is it all?
To what end 
    do we struggle?

Perhaps the most
    incredible thing
    of all of this
Is not that I’m
    any closer
    to finding the answer.

Rather, I have grown 
    accustomed
    to uncertainty.

Rather than bemoan
    the gaping maw,
    I now sit quietly.
        I watch.
        I listen.
        I wait
    for the mysteries
        to reveal themselves,
    even as the questions
        and mysteries
            multiply.

Why struggle against
    the darkness
When I can be
    its student?

What should I fear
    from my
    greatest teacher?

Liberté

Oh my child,
    you thought that your
        humility
    would save you!

That now, finally,
    you would rise from the ashes
        of obscurity
    to be made whole.

You believed that
    by shrinking
        you would be beloved

You accepted that
    by drinking this gall —
        this self-debasement
        and castigation —
    the world would rush
        to stopper up
    your slashed
        and bleeding heart!

No longer may
    you rest your worth
        in another’s hands —
            real or imagined —

No longer may you offer
    your very soul upon
        an altar built
            by strangers

No longer shall you slash
    your all-encompassing heart
        to fit within
            the confines
                of another’s bounds!

The Ugly Duckling

No one ever told you

That she became a swan

Only after she left

Silly

Some say silly resides in tents
and rings of circus fairs —
With globs of paint and honking horns
and locks of red-teased hair.

For others, silly are the youth
dusted with chalk and grime —
Precious, mischievous, little ones
with giggles like wildfire.

Still others say: silly are they
who do not fit their ways —
Foreigners, infidels, strangers all
with tongue and custom strange.

Yet silly, for me, sits across
this little table now.
How closely do our minds align —
as I laugh at my sweet clown.

These Certain Leaves

Alone and estranged —
From each other, from ourselves –
I am again divided
In my heart and soul.

Why continue on
With this broken mind —
Its tears falling for naught,
Its strivings, vain and void,

The very music
In this aching heart
Now cracked, now muted, now silent?

But now I see —
Yes, I am alone, truly —

For how else could these eyes
Discover this certain tree
Anointed by this certain rain?

Never will another being
See this exact scene!
Never will another being
Feel this exact truth!

Never again will these particular leaves,
These particular trees,
These particular streets
Ever shine again
In these particular,
Individual,
Human
Eyes!

What Love Tells Me

What does love tell me?

First, it tells
      of loss:
  The pang of departures
      past, present
      and in the distant
      future.

Next, it shows
      of discovery:
  The hotbed of exploration
      lusty, heady,
      intoxicating and
      pure.

Finally, it regales
      of eternity:
  The love of the stars,
      The tender earth,
      Its streaming rivers
      reflecting Sun, Moon,
      and endless Galaxies…

And also you.
      You, you —
  Experiencing the heartthrob
      of all Creation!
  Drink deeply of it,
      Breathe in its heady perfume,
      Hold within your starlit heart
      The joy-song of all existence!

In darkness we wait

In darkness we wait.

When hatred reigns
and integrity sways
to the whims of extremism’s knife:

In darkness we wait.

When truth and hope
both flicker and wane
from the gales of lies and deception:

In darkness we wait.

When the night ever deepens
and the stars slowly fade,
and dawn is but a painful memory:

In darkness we wait.

When the wailer falls silent
as the bodies whisk by –
whole peoples stolen, lost, and forgotten:

In darkness we wait.

When Fear becomes Strength
And Death becomes Cheap
And Terror given Scepter and Crown:

In darkness we wait.

When the strings are silenced
And the singer without words –
Every joy, every melody, every chord, forgotten:

In darkness we wait.

My Life is a Shrine

My life is a shrine,
Precious moments
long gone,
A menagerie frozen
in my eye alone.

Each trinket a life
(Seems ten thousand
or so),
Each one reflecting other’s —
and also my own.

Tucked away, silent,
kept behind lock
and key,
Moments living only,
ever now for me.

Friends and family now gone,
fervent loves
grown cold —
And, sadly also, the ghosts
who are all my own.

All my warriors who
to life’s cruel pull
succumbed,
Every face a future dream —
buried, mute, and dumb.

How their eyes do flame
with hope and yearning
filled,
Consid’ring their reflection —
who breathes, dimmer still.

Compline

Oh, tranquil night!
Oh, muted starlight!
Listen to my pleas,
of a wand’ring child
to eternal skies.

I weep but for trifling things:
for the morning sunrise
in the grassland dew,
for the full-day sun
upon flow’ring fields.

I grieve for forgotten things:
for afternoon rays
upon a mother’s brow,
for the evening wind
across the plains.

To your silent vigil I pray
for each of my sins
and for those of my kin.
I wail for every transgression
that was, that is, and will be.

Oh, that I could bear
this world’s sin
That none should ever
need suffer!

Oh, that I could die
a thousands deaths
that none should ever
feel its sting!

A Prayer

Much has been said and written regarding the Holocaust. Yet, as history and present times stand to attest, humanity has routinely neglected to learn from these lesssons.

This prayer is a personal reaction to the Hall of Remembrance at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. As the final living witnesses of these atrocities pass away, may we continue to carry for them this burden—of testimony, of vigilance, of remembrance: a burden they never deserved to bear.

A prayer from within
the Shrine of Stone:

May its Eternal Flame
never dim.
May its Witness ever
stand vigil.
May its Descendants
never forget
The Earth that holds
their sins.
May Humanity
never forget
the stain within
its bones.
May its Incense ever rise
And purify our souls.