Counting Ten

The sand and the sea the mud and the dark and the green

the sticky stuff on the surf the early rains and later rains

The mud the mud the green the sand the dark

You will be a blessing as great as the dark as the sea the sand the green

the flie

-- the Stars

Counting Nine

Don’t sweet talk me draw me into the deep carry me in your pocket sling me like a satchel over your shoulder the truth a dark candle the candle at the hearth with all its shadows --

Reflected dark dark dark -- light.

-- The moon

Counting Eight

I’m your Jewish grandma I’m a middle aged gay man I’m a gangster from Detroit I’m someone’s kid I’m a breast I’m your daddy I’m a footnote on somebody’s life.

-- Night and day

Counting Seven

Counting Seven


What is that flowing through you?
It’s G*d

Your inheritance


-- the Rivers




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Counting Six

Counting Six

So you had some stuff happen

When you were a kid

Keep coming here

You’ll get your soul back

-- the Waters

Counting Five

Counting Five

Savaging the future

Against a past you cannot forget

This one makes pictures into words

We are all haunted

-- the Fields

Counting Four

Counting Four

On the way to the mountain
Lean and new
Nothing left to resist
Become something


-- The Wilderness

Counting Six

Counting Six

So you had some stuff happen

When you were a kid

Keep coming here

You’ll get your soul back

-- the Waters

Counting Three

Counting Three

Stuff or substance
Patience and desire
Fire your chef
Feed yourself


-- Your Hunger

Counting Two

Counting Two

Without a witness
The story forgotten
A tombstone with a name
Walk through the yard

When you take the children
Waiting for rain
A late summer shower
The story buried there

Morning

-- the Earth

Counting 49

Here is your wisdom, nicely packaged it’s now in book form first it came as thunder and lightning but some time into the future after you are done with the telling you will begin the writing then it will be a book then it will return to lightning in digital form and you will return to telling because the words are on the wind in the rain maybe once in a while you’ll project them on a wall or write them into a journal or sing them to remind you that the word has shape and also that the word does not have shape it has sound. The return to thunder.

-- the Master Blaster

Day 49

The Flame is saying, "I am YHVH your God, who brought you out of Mitzrayim, out of the house of bondage." (Exodus 20:2)

Counting 48

It’s a test, all of it, you will be tested daily. Today a test, tomorrow a test, each day a quiz and if you fail it today you can make it tomorrow. Go home and take tomorrow fresh. Do-over, every day new. That’s not a blessing?

-- the Smart Guy

Counting 48

The question mark associated with the mysterium: what to do, and the vulnerability of being a human being alive but fearful of the drift downward. Get Up and On With It.

-- the Sage

Day 48

The sage is saying, "I hate quotation.  Tell me what you know."  (The Concorder Rebbe)

Counting 47

In a field of postures pray for voice open up your heart-line all that was holy entered through your wounds the last place you expected.

-- the Singer

Day 47

The singer is saying, 

“One thing have I desired: 

to dwell in the house of God all my days, 

to behold the beauty of YHVH, 

to seek amid holiness.” (from Ps. 27:4)

Counting 45

Love and service I’m at peace today pick up the 500 pound phone when you need to and in extremis: watch baseball.



-- the Caregiver

Day 46

The worker is saying, 

"May the favor of our God be upon us,

and establish the work of our hands for us;

establish the work of our hands!"  (Psalm 90:17)

Day 45

The caregiver is saying, "Like a mother has compassion on her children, so God has compassion on those who are afraid" (from Ps. 103:13).

Counting 46

Blessing whole and individual

the power of the upper root

To break through your skin

And live in G*d

-- the Worker

Days 41-44

Day 41

The fox is saying, "Woe to him that builds his house with unfairness, and his rooms with injustice; who makes his neighbor work without wages, and does not give what he owes." (Jeremiah 22:13)

Day 42

The dogs are saying, "Come let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before God our maker." (Psalm 95:6)

Rabbi Yeshayah said, “Dogs, about whom it is written, ‘the dogs are brazen of spirit, never satisfied’ (Isaiah 56:11) – shall they merit uttering a song?” An angel answered him from heaven and said to him, “Yeshayah, how long will you fast over this? It is written that ‘no dog sharpened its tongue against any of the children of Israel’ (Exodus 11:7). For this reason, they merited a song.

Day 43

The lover is saying, 

My dove in the clefts of the rock,

in the shadow of the cliff,

let me see you, all of you!

Let me hear your voice,

your delicious song.  (Song of Songs, 2:14) .

Day 44

The warrior is saying, “Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for combat and my fingers for battle.” (Ps. 144:1)

Counting 44

Pray accept push take release sleep flip

center breathe believe learn.

-- the Warrior

Counting 43

Great god mystery I don’t know enough to ask great god sympathy I need you knowing great god compassion represent.

-- the lover

Counting 42.2

You be human beings

Let God be God

For this wisdom

We merited

Singing.

-- the Dogs

Counting 42

Never satisfied always hungry this is our edge and for this we merit singing. We never turn against our loyalties. We know what we belong to.



-- the Dogs

Count 41

When we’re good we’re very good, spiritual extremists we can be bad. No way to beat that exactly. Eclipse. Light and dark, all in and once-in-a-while: all out. Be careful.

-- the Fox

Day 40

Counting 40


I recognize the good word and the right deed the keen intention and purity of purpose; all rare. Uncommon. And I am uncompromising on excellence. Don't think that's easy or proud. Mostly I keep my mouth shut. Give me something good.

-- the Elephant

Day 39

I carry it to I carry it from listening to the sound of my steps I show up when requested often when not. I have slowed down.

Slow but steady my feet. My shoulders broad.

-- Beast of Burden

Day 38

Safe not-safe safe I am holding for refuge once I take off I am exposed you comforted me before I leapt now my yearning animates me that sense of longing alive alive.

-- the Gazelle

Day 39

The beast of burden is saying,  "You shall indeed partake of the labor of your hands--fortunate you are; good will come to you."(Psalm 128:2)

Day 38

The gazelle is saying, "And I shall sing of your strength, I shall rejoice in your kindness in the morning, for you were a refuge to me, and the hiding place on the day of my oppression." (Psalm 59:17)

Safe refuge
Yearning always
You sheltered me
And I returned kindness
With more hunger

I made beauty
Out of desire

Desire
Out of beauty

-- the Gazelle

Day 37

The lion is saying, "YHVH goes forth like a warrior; like a fighter he stokes his wrath.  He yells, he roars aloud, demonstrates his strength against his enemies." (Isaiah 42:13)

Day 36, cont.

When I injured my foot they could have put me out I've heard it happens but they did not and I pushed on I was taught to move through be gracious and cheerful this is what I came from I made myself useful. Today another apple.

-- the Horse

Day 36

The horse is saying, "Behold as the eyes of the servants follow the hand of their master, as the eyes of the maidservant follow the hand of her mistress, so our eyes are toward HASHEM our God, awaiting his favor." (Psalm 123:2)

I walked into an injury my yearning was greater than the wound and when they considered retiring me I became more spirited now they call me an example or exemplar their word I think it's unseemly all I want is an apple.


-- the Horse

Day 35, cont.

I said to you once I don't think I could live without you that's when you said you don't have to. I couldn't help thinking into the future and then into the past when we met stop that you said you know you're in trouble when you're thinking make your mind your friend and stay here right now it's too much for me when you're traveling backwards or forward that way don't you know we are all dying into life all the time by just being. There you did it. You know how much I dislike the word just.

-- the Frog

Day 34, cont.

I lay there after my injury and looked out a rectangle of window that's all I could see the sky clouds and a rooftop across the way some spouts and an antenna and about twice a day something out of the ordinary passed by for the ten seconds or so it took to float or fly by. Today there was a plane which has become commonplace and then something red floating -- was it a kite was it a balloon -- it was far enough away I could not discern it but it was red red as if everything else were gray and it floated through the rectangle of the sky for fifteen seconds and I think it healed me at least I ceased feeling like a prisoner because lying there injured working that rectangle of sky a person could feel like a prisoner.

-- Mouse

Day 35

The frog is saying, Baruch shem kevod malkhuto l’olam va’ed --"Blessed is the name of the God’s glorious realm for all eternity." (Talmud, Pesachim 56a)

The sages said concerning King David that when he completed the book of Psalms, he became proud. He said before the Holy One, "Is there any creature you have created in your world that says more songs and praises then I?"  At that moment a frog happened across his path, and it said to him: David! Do not become proud, for I recite more songs and praises then you.  Furthermore, every song I say contains three thousand parables, as it says, "and he spoke three thousand parables, and his songs were one thousand five hundred" (Kings 15:12). And furthermore, I am busy with a great mitzvah, and this is the mitzvah with which I am busy – there is a certain type of creature by the edge of the sea who sustenance is entirely from [creatures living in] the water, and when it is hungry, it takes me and eats me, such that I fulfill that which it says, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; for you shall heap coals of fire on his head, and God shall reward you" (Proverbs 25:21-22); do not read “shall reward you" but instead "shall make him complete you." (Yalkut Shimoni on Psalms)

Day 34

The cat is saying, "if you rise up like a vulture, and place your nest on the stars, from there I shall bring you down, says God." (Obadiah 1:4)

And the mouse says, "I shall exalt you, God, you have drawn me up, and you have not let my enemies rejoice over me." (Psalm 30:2)

And when the cat catches it, the cat says, "I have pursued my enemies and overtaken them, and I did not return until they were destroyed." (Psalm 18:38)

And the mouse says, "you are just for all that comes upon me, for you have acted truthfully, and I have been wicked." (Cf. Nehemiah 9:33)

***

Cartoon commentary: "Cheese Chasers" (1951) by Chuck Jones, featuring Hubie, Bert and Claude Cat.

Day 33, cont.

The sea turtle is saying, "the voice of YHVH is upon the waters, the God of glory thunders, YHVH upon many waters." (Psalm 29:3)

Day 33

I was nervous and I couldn’t figure out how to do everything so I made some mistakes and felt pity for myself and then I was a child and I ached for my protectors there was no one to protect me and I felt lost and then I forgave myself I forgave myself and felt compassion and I was safe and I thought I was swimming and then floating not swimming at all so I was floating the sea then I was the sea.

-- the sea turtle

Day 32

The snake is saying: "YHVH supports all the fallen and straightens all the bent." (Psalms 145:14)


Sit in front of yourself and ask what do you see?

How do you sit in front of yourself?

Espaclaria – the looking glass.

K.

Do you see strength – or space?

I see a hole.

A hole or a whole. Not sure I heard you.

H-O-L-E. Sometimes whole. Not today.

Think of it this way: You. With spaces.

K.

Now – do what you can to fill up spaces with everything you love the most.

Everything?

Every. Thing. You. Love. The. Most.



-- The Snake

Day 31

I’m so glad you’re here. It’s easy.

How so.

You gotta let go.

I don’t wanna let go.

You gotta let go.

--  The Grasshopper

Day 31

The grasshopper is saying: "I lift my eyes to the mountains, where shall my help come from?" (Psalms 121:1)

Day 30, cont.

The vulture is says\ing: "God of Hosts, Lord of Israel, awake to make a reckoning with all the nations; do not pardon any wrongdoing traitors, selah." (Ps. 59:6)

Day 30

The saxophone and the stringest

They were birthed together

Wrestling in the womb

At first they couldn’t hear each other

Then I arrived

Introduced them

Noise it was all noise

The blowing

Noise

Pluck pluck chunk chunk

Noise

Silence noise too

Noise all over

Noise is a beautiful word

Said the saxophone

It was the voice that taught them

Hush up

Listen to each other.

-- The Vulture

Day 29

The Scorpion is saying, "God is good to all, and merciful to all his works." (Ps. 145:9)  

Day 28

That man stopped the car

Right before we climbed over the curb

I made it first

My six babies after me.

What that man did was

Kind, clever, and risky.

Don’t you think that if we were all

Kind and clever

Were willing to be risky –

We’d get to the other side?

-- the Rooster

Day 28

The Crane is saying, "Give thanks to God with the lyre; make music to him with the ten-stringed harp." (Ps. 33:2)

Many psalms begin with the phrase mizmor leDavid. Sometimes the word order is inverted: leDavid mizmor. The two phrases seem to mean the same thing, and contemporary translations typically render both as "a psalm of David" (i.e., "written by David" or "belonging to David").  The Talmud, however, makes an imaginative distinction. It understands the phrase leDavid not as "of David" but as "to David," referring to the Shekhinah, the inspiring divine Presence, which came "to David." The word order signifies whether the song was begun as a response to divine inspiration or whether divine inspiration came as a result of beginning the song. "Where the psalm commences leDavid mizmor, the Shekinah first rested upon David and then he sang the psalm, but where it commences mizmor leDavid he first sang the psalm and then the Shekinah rested upon him." (Pesachim 117a).

Day 27

Where are you?

God was asking

To mess with you

To reward you

To pay attention to you

Where are you in the sense

Where are you at

Suggesting Nowhere

Becoming Somewhere

-- the Rooster

Day 27

The Hen says, "Giving food to all flesh, for his chesed endures for ever." (Ps. 136:25)

Chesed is one of those wonderfully untranslatable Hebrew words, combining as it does overtones of love, loyalty, and kindness.  You'll often see "steadfast love" or "loving kindness" as a translation (you may also see "mercy," which is less accurate).   It is a human as well as a divine attribute--both Boaz and Ruth manifest it, for example.

Day 26

Three Souls

One inquiry

The second distracted

The third scored big

Every one tracked outcomes in those days

One soul attended to feet

One foot in front of another

This step next step

-- the Rooster

Day 26

In its seventh call the rooster says: "It is time to act, YHWH, for they have broken your law." (Proverbs 119:126)


The rooster's last call is a wake-up call to God.

Day 25

In its fifth call the rooster says: "How long will you lay down, O sluggard? When will you rise from your sleep?" (Proverbs 6:9)

In its sixth call it says: "Do not love sleep, lest you become poor;open your eyes and you shall be satisfied with bread." (Proverbs 20:13)

Chaiku:

rooster crows: “awake!

      it would be so cruel to let

            your life be stillborn.”

Day 24

In its fourth call, the rooster says: "I wait for your salvation, O God." (Gen. 49:18)

My soul waits for God

More than those who watch for morning;

More than those who watch for morning.  (Ps. 130:5)

Day 23

In its first call, the rooster says: "Lift up your heads, O gates! lift them up, O everlasting doors, so that the King of glory may enter! Who is this King of glory? YHVH, the strong and mighty, YHVH, mighty in battle!" (Psalms 24:7-8)

In its second call it says:  "Lift up your heads, O gates! lift them up, O everlasting doors, so that the King of glory may enter!  Who is He, the King of Glory? YHVH God of hosts, He is the King of Glory, Selah!" (Psalms 24:9-10)

In its third call it says: "Stand, O righteous ones, and occupy yourselves with Torah, so that your reward will be double in the World-to-Come."

Traditional Jewish interpretation of Psalm 24 has vv. 7-8 refer to the present age and its echo in vv. 9-10 (but note the absence of "battle") refer to the Messianic age.  In the third call, the righteous are admonished to "stand" (in a sense, to lift of their heads) and steep themselves in Torah, with a reward extending past the horizon of this present time.

This is the gale, and that the harbor;

This is the walk, and that the arbor;

Or this the garden, that the grove.

Day 22 (cont.)

The Rooster says: "When the Holy One, blessed be He, comes to the righteous in the Garden of Eden, all the trees of the Garden of Eden exude their fragrance, and they rejoice and praise, and then He too is aroused and praises." (Zohar, Vayakhel, 195)

Perek Shira lingers over the rooster; it will add seven more verses for each of its seven calls.  

In the Mishnah (and subsequently in the siddur) one says this blessing upon hearing the cock crow: "Blessed is the One who gives the rooster understanding to distinguish between day and night."   In quoting the Zohar, Perek Shira ascribes to the rooster a comparable sensitivity to change and arousal in the spiritual realm.

Day 22

Day 22 of the Omer

I came to a wall

I looked up there was no doorway

I sat down

Spread out a well-set table

I invited a friend

We looked up again

A wall

The wall cast a shadow

Lunch? My friend suggested

No lunch, I said

I have been taught

When sitting in the shadow of a wall

Go around

Go through

Climb over

Make a new door

Do not

Have lunch.

-- Tal Botzot – Dew of Muds

Day 21

The other sheaves are saying, "The meadows are closed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with green; they shout for joy, they also sing." (Psalm 65:14)

The grasses are saying, "May the glory of God endure forever; may God rejoice in his works." (Psalm 104:31)


A voice is saying, “Cry!”
But I say, “What shall I cry?”
All flesh is grass.
All its grace like the flower of the field.
Grass withers, flowers fade
When the breath of God blows on them.
Grass withers, flowers fade
But the word of God endures.
(Is. 40:6-8)

Day 20


The sand
and the sea
the stars
the dark
the green
the sticky stuff on the surf
the early rains
and the later rains
the green
the sand
the dark

-- Tal Botzot - Dew of Muds

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Day 20

The sheaves of barley are saying, "A prayer of the pauper, when he swoons, and pours out his speech before God." (Psalm 102:1)

Bending with the wind
Buffeted,
But still connected.

Singing . . .

Day 19

The sheaves of wheat are saying, "A Song of Ascents: Out of the depths have I cried to you, O God." (Psalm 130:1)

After it germinates, after it grows, after reaches a height and puts forth leaves, after the head matures, with its kernels and its beard, the sheaf realizes that all that time under ground was worth it.

Day 18

The Pomegranate is saying, "The curve of your cheek like a pomegranate in the thicket of your hair." (Song of Songs 4:3)

Day 17

The Palm is saying, "The righteous flourish like the palm tree; they grow like a cedar in Lebanon." (Psalm 92:13)

Day 16 of the Omer

Emanating loom

Flames and

Heat

A spark spans

Colors no color at all

Dolor

The word

Resolute and

Patrician

Opaque

Transparent

Opaque

-- Tal-Orot, the Dew of Light

Day 16

The Fig tree is saying, “The one who watches over the fig tree will eat its fruit.” (Proverbs 27:18)

Care and husbandry impart a kind of ownership.  This is a natural law, a principle first vivified in my imagination by the story “Horton Hatches the Egg.”

Day 15

The Vine is saying, "Thus says God: As the wine is found in the cluster,and they say, 'Do not destroy it, for there is a blessing in it,' so I will do for my servants' sake, and not destroy everything." (Isaiah 65:8)

Do not destroy it, 
for there is a blessing in it.

Do not 
destroy it, 
for there is a blessing 
in it.

Do not destroy it.

Tuesday, 4.29.14
After Dark
Day 15 of the Omer

Through an espaclaria*

You will see future

Past

You will look back

You will look forward

You will see east to west

Stand that way: East

Now turn this way: West

Where you are standing?

East-West

Past-Future

Trap a single grain of sand

By your hand

Take a breath

One breeze

-- the Dew of Light Tal-Orot

*clouded glass

jsg.usa

Monday, April 28

Ascended he did

To the top

Of the chariot of Ezekiel

It was covered in the

Dew of light

Tal-Orot

From there he saw and

Understood

Everything

Only

He may not have seen

Far enough

-- the Dew of Light Tal-Orot 

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Day 13 / Yom HaShoah

A VOGN SHIKH (A Cartload of Shoes)
Avrom Sutzkever, Vilna Ghetto, January 1, 1943

The wheels roll on, roll on,
What do they bring?
they bring me a wagon
with flopping shoes.

The wagon, like a khupa
In the dusk of evening;
The big pile of shoes
Like a dancing throng.

A holiday, a wedding . . .?
Who has blinded me?
The shoes . . .
now I see what they are.

The soles klop out a rhythm:
Whither? whither? whither?
From the streets of old Vilna
They drive us to Berlin.

I must not ask "whose,"
but there is a tear in my heart.
Tell me the truth, shoes:
Where are the feet?

The feet from each pair
With buttons like dewdrops.
Here--where is the little body?
There--where is the woman?

With all the children's shoes
why do I see no children?
Why isn't the bride wearing
those sandals now?

Through children's shoes and scraps,
I recognize my mama's shoes!
The slippers she would put on
Just for Shabbes.

The soles klop out a rhythm:
Whither? whither? whither?
From the streets of old Vilna
They drive us to Berlin.

You can also hear Sutzkever himself read the poem in Yiddish; look for the Yiddish transliteration in the comment section below the video.


***

We are the shoes, we are the last witnesses.
We are shoes from grandchildren and grandfathers,
From Prague, Paris and Amsterdam,
And because we are only made of stuff and leather
And not of blood and flesh, 

each one of us avoided the hellfire.

Morris Shulstein