Poem for the last day of Elul / the eve of Rosh Hashanah
Posted: September 24, 2014 Filed under: English Comments Off on Poem for the last day of Elul / the eve of Rosh Hashanah
Stacey Robinson
It was not day
.
It was not evening,
nor night,
not quite –
although the sickle moon,
dusted in orange,
kissed the plumes
of passing clouds.
It was not morning,
thogh the sun
stained the sky
scarlet,
and shivered there,
on the horizon
that was sea and sky together,
and neither sea
nor sky
alone.
And so we prayed,
gathered at the water’s edge,
in the not-evening-
Almost morning.
We opened our lips
on the border
of land that moved
with fluid grace,
next to the dark glass
of an obsidian sea
that rippled with
the laughter of stars
that skated there.
And all the Hosts of Heaven
waited in expectant
and shimmering
Glory,
in that not-quite moment,
that sacred place
of not you
and not me;
That place where God lives –
at the very edge
of Heaven
and Earth,
That is the centre;
And calls to us
With bird song and wind
and the rippling
lightening
obsidian sea.
And there the shofar* called
A single note,
Stretching out unto
eternity.
There was evening,
There was morning:
One day.
.
(September 2014)
. . .
*shofar: a simple curved horn, usually from a ram, the sound of which, when blown, is a trumpet call to both action and spiritual reflection during the Jewish month of Elul that precedes Rosh Hashanah (the New Year in Hebrew)
Stacey Zisook Robinson writes on faith and doubt in her verse, which is best described as Searching Poetry. She is working on a collection of religious poems, to be entitled Unexpected Hosannas, plus a book of memoirs and essays exploring the idea of self acceptance (Just Enough). She shares both questions and insights at at her on-line journal stumblingtowardsmeaning.
Shofar painting and tapestry: both by Anna Kocherovsky
Zócalo Poets 