Building the Bais HaMikdash

        
       July 17, '13


                          Building the Bais HaMikdash

      I found today the brand of marmalade I sought -
      The avocado cream I wanted,
      The perfect little towel I had vainly hunted,
      And thanked HaShem for finding me the things I bought.
      Lest you think nothing could add to a felicitous day -
      In a neighborhood where I had rarely been,
      I saw the tallest date-palm I had ever seen -
      Higher than high buildings it held sway.
      Thanks and praise in one day was sufficient,
      But would not have been complete
      Without giving a coin to someone in the street:
      Pleasure in my new things was not deficient.
      Small by small we bring redemption, with our knowledge
                                                              or without it -
      The Rambam himself tells us not to doubt it.
     

Expecting the Unexpected

                    

    July 10, '13

                              Expecting the Unexpected


     Ever since assigned to write
     On a boon least expected,
     Daily I await something unexpected -
     A gift out of nowhere - a message of light.
     But a fact it is wrongheaded not to face -
     Is that hourly expecting an event
     Is sure guarantee it will not take place -
     Something at all costs I want to prevent.
     So I stopped awaiting a gratuitous gift -
     And I did it without delay -
     Glad I made of my folly short shrift -
     Since nothing was at my door next morning but the day.
     Un-do the Deceiver who obscures the truth with stealth!
     Slay it! Slay it! - the greatest boon is Life itself.

                            

         June 26, '13

                                       'What If ' I Refuse...

       I think you thought I would reject the topic -
      Well I might -  well I might -
      But if inclined to the philosophic,
      I would say providence gave me an opening to write.
      I sought after class and the city's noise,
      The hushed quiet of a library -
      There I sat an hour immersed in poetry -
      Seeing mountains and  the windhover's exquisite poise.
      What if you could bodily enter the place a poem conveys -
      Be in Frost's woods on a snowy evening,
      Or in the garden at Amherst on a summer's day -
      Would your inner self be transformed on leaving?
      A poem is a breathtaking event in language -
                                               not the limning of a place -
      Besides  -  where your mind is  -   is where
                                               you actually are in space.