We watch your fortunate hearts
In the dark garden of thrown light.
Little do you know,
Your practice of discernment is refinement.
We angels, in our perfect purity,
Lack this capacity,
Cannot create something from nothing.
What outstanding power you flawed humans command.
In your glorious shortsightedness,
You force All-That-Is to condense,
So that your limited consciousness
Can make sense of it.
What gifts you have been given.
Your clumsy egos, far too big
For their collective britches,
Want grand expansiveness,
Which calls The Infinite out of its contraction.
Listen:
From within you,
Your crumpled emotions ache to stretch their limbs.
Stop shoving their heads
Under the waterline of your subconscious.
Submerged, they writhe and terrify
In their drowning.
Invite and honor these strange visitations.
Permit them expression.
Let them catch their shared breath.
Cry out and feel the sweet
And astonishing relief of such deep longing.
What is it to know a love like this?
A love beyond love,
Above above and below below,
An unreasonable love
Outside the bounds of justification,
An abject resonance waiting to vibrate in harmony.
What your claustrophobic souls are practicing
Is the sacred art of pining,
The building of desire,
A gathering of swirling energy.
You yearn to return to the primal pulse,
To dissolve into
The thundering drumbeat bloodstream of eternity.
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And now…your EMOJI DVAR TORAH! Special Alter Rebbe Edition:
“There is love like fire, and there is love like water.”
Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi
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Chai Elul Sameach! Thank you to Rabbi Reuven Wolf of Maayon Yisroel, whose Thursday Night Shiur teachings have deeply nourished this poem.
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Photo: Starman by Carl Jones
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