Biblical Poetry – Page 3 – As It Ought To Be

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: THE MOONS OF AUGUST

Posted on February 22, 2014 by asitoughttobemagazine

FROM THE MOONS OF AUGUST
By Danusha Laméris

EVE, AFTER

Did she know
there was more to life
than lions licking the furred
ears of lambs,
fruit trees dropping
their fat bounty,
the years droning on
without argument?

Too much quiet
is never a good sign.
Isn’t there always
something itching
beneath the surface?

But what could she say?
The larder was full
and they were beautiful,
their bodies new
as the day they were made.

Each morning the same
flowers broke through
the rich soil, the birds sang,
again, in perfect pitch.

It was only at night
when they lay together in the dark
that it was almost palpable—
the vague sadness, unnamed.

Foolishness, betrayal,
—call it what you will. What a relief
to feel the weight
fall into her palm. And after,
not to pretend anymore
that the terrible calm
was Paradise.

LONE WOLF

On December 8, 2011, the first wolf in nearly a hundred years was seen
crossing the border of the Sierra Nevada from Oregon to California.

A male, probably looking for a mate
in this high wilderness
along the cusp of Mount Shasta.
Already there are ranchers waiting, armed.
True, it’s only one wolf.
Except that a wolf is never just a wolf.
We say “wolf” but mean our own hunger,
walking around outside our bodies.
The thief desire is. the part of wanting
we want to forget but can’t. Not
with the wolf loose in the woods
carrying the thick fur
of our longing. Not with it taking
in its mouth the flocks we keep
penned behind barbed wire.
If only we didn’t have to hear it
out in the dark, howling.

THE BALANCE

She was at a friend’s apartment,
my mother, a third floor walk-up.
It was summer. Why she slipped
into the back room, she can’t recall.
Was there something she wanted
fro her purse…lipstick?
a phone number?
Fumbling through the pile
on the bed she looked up and saw—
was this possible?—outside,
on the thin concrete ledge
a child, a girl, no more than two or three.
She was crouched down
eyeing an object with great interest.
A pebble, or a bright coin.
What happened next
must have happened very slowly.
My mother, who was young then,
leaned out the window, smiled.
Would you like to see
what’s in my purse? she asked.
Below, traffic rushed
down the wide street, horns blaring.
Students ambled home
under the weight of their backpacks.
From the next room,
strains of laughter.
The child smiled back, toddled along
the ledge. What do we know
of fate or chance, the threads
that hold us in the balance?
My mother did not imagine
one day she would
lose her own son, helpless
to stop the bullet
he aimed at his heart.
She reached out to the girl,
grabbed her in both arms,
held her to her chest.

The Moons of August: “Danusha Laméris writes with definitive, savoring power—in perfectly well-weighted lines and scenes. Her poems strike deeply, balancing profound loss and new finding, employing a clear eye, a way of being richly alive with appetite and gusto, and a gift of distilling experience to find its shining core. Don’t miss this stunning first book.” —Naomi Shihab Nye

“This book of motherhood, memory, and elegiac urgency crosses borders, cultures, and languages to bring us the good news of being alive. With language clear as water and rich as blood, The Moons of August offers a human communion we can all believe in. Reckoning with and grieving for the past as they claim the future, these poems are wise, direct, and fearless. “What’s gone / is not quite gone, but lingers,” Laméris reminds us. “Not the language, but the bones / of the language. Not the beloved, / but the dark bed the beloved makes / inside our bodies.” —Dorianne Laux

Danusha Laméris’s work has been published in Alaska Quarterly Review, Poetry Northwest, Rattle, The Sun and Crab Orchard Review as well as in a variety of other journals. Her poems have also appeared in the anthologies In a Fine Frenzy: Poets Respond to Shakespeare, A Bird Black as the Sun: California Poets on Crows and Ravens, and Intimate Kisses. She was a finalist for the 2010 and 2012 New Letters Prize in poetry and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her poem, “Riding Bareback,” won the 2013 Morton Marcus Memorial prize in poetry, selected by Gary Young and her first book, The Moons of August, was chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye as the winner of the Autumn House Press poetry contest. She lives in Santa Cruz, California and teaches an ongoing poetry workshop.

Editor’s Note: I first discovered Danusha Laméris when I featured her stunning poem “Arabic” in the fall of 2013. When I read that her first book was forthcoming this year—and chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye as the winner of the Autumn House Press poetry contest, no less—I begged the poet remember me when the book was released. When it arrived I read, devoured, re-read, explored, breathed, bled, and grew whole once more within the boundless confines of its pages.

Through Laméris’ words I was the first woman born; I knew the burden—and relief—of being Eve. I was as old as time and as all-encompassing as nature. I was as helpless and as grieved as a mother, and as powerful. The Moons of August is small and light and fits effortlessly in my hands. Yet it reaches far back to human origins and delves deep into the human experience and the complex soul of (wo)man. “With,” as Dorianne Laux so aptly states, “language clear as water and rich as blood,” this is a book to read when you want to feel alive, from the very atoms that comprise you to the farthest reaches of your white light.

Want to see more by Danusha Laméris?
Author’s Official Website

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: THE SONG OF SONGS

Posted on February 15, 2014 by asitoughttobemagazine

Depiction of Solomon and Pharaoh’s daughter reciting the Song of Solomon.
This image is in the public domain.

From THE SONG OF SONGS
From the Hebrew Bible

I am a rose of Sharon,
a lily of the valleys.

As a lily among brambles,
so is my love among maidens.

As an apple tree among the trees of the wood,
so is my beloved among young men.
With great delight I sat in his shadow,
and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
He brought me to the banqueting house,
and his banner over me was love.
Sustain me with raisins,
refresh me with apples;
for I am sick with love.
O that his left hand were under my head,
and that his right hand embraced me!
I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,
by the gazelles or the hinds of the field,
that you stir not up nor awaken love until it please.

The voice of my beloved!
Behold, he comes,
leaping upon the mountains,
bounding over the hills.
My beloved is like a gazelle,
or a young stag.
Behold, there he stands
behind our wall,
gazing in at the windows,
looking through the lattice.

My beloved speaks and says to me:
“Arise, my love, my fair one,
and come away;
for lo, the winter is past,
the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth,
the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the turtledove
is heard in our land.
The fig tree puts forth its figs,
and the vines are in blossom;
they give forth fragrance.
Arise, my love, my fair one,
and come away.
O my dove, in the clefts of the rock,
in the covert of the cliff,
let me see your face,
let me hear your voice,
for your voice is sweet,
and your face is comely.
Catch us the foxes,
the little foxes,
that spoil the vineyards,
for our vineyards are in blossom.”

My beloved is mine and I am his,
he pastures his flock among the lilies.
Until the day breathes
and the shadows flee,
turn, my beloved, be like a gazelle,
or a young stag upon rugged mountains.

(Today’s poem is in the public domain, belongs to the masses, and appears here today accordingly.)

The Song of Songs, also known as the “Song of Solomon” or “Canticles,” is one of the megillot (scrolls) found in the last section of the Tanakh, known as the Ketuvim (or “Writings”), a book of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. The Song of Songs is unique within the Hebrew Bible: it shows no interest in Law or Covenant or the God of Israel; instead, it seems to celebrate sexual love. It gives “the voices of two lovers, praising each other, yearning for each other, proffering invitations to enjoy.” The two are in harmony, each desiring the other and rejoicing in sexual intimacy. (Annotated biography of King Solomon courtesy of Wikipedia.org, with edits.)

Editor’s Note: In honor of Valentine’s Day, the Saturday Poetry Series offers you a good old fashioned love poem, emphasis on the old. An anomaly among the fire and brimstone, monotheistic propaganda, and general prescription of the Bible, the illicit sexual nature and unbridled romance of The Song of Songs has baffled scholars for centuries. Believed to have been written some time between the tenth and second centuries BCE, there is no authoritative agreement regarding the poem’s authorship, inception, or setting. The subject matter of the poem itself has long been heatedly debated, with some scholars embracing the titillating nature of this epic poem, while others insist it is a metaphor for man’s love of God. While its milder language is often quoted in the context of weddings, showcasing a true love with ancient roots, when one sits down and reads this masterpiece from beginning to end—with eyes wide open—they encounter a hot and steamy poem that gives Fifty Shades of Grey a real run for its money.

Want to read more about Biblical poetry?
Wikipedia

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: KRISTIN GEORGE BAGDANOV

Posted on December 14, 2013 by asitoughttobemagazine

WE DISSOLVE SEPARATELY
By Kristin George Bagdanov

In the beginning was the word, was the
breath that shaped it, the mouth
that cupped the breath and the body
that made it. I am merely flesh, remaking

myself every seven years. I breathe to escape
my origin, caressing the unseen
with syllable like rings of smoke
that open to dissolve. Trust me, you will

always be alone. We will always be separate in time,
the distance between our bodies in bed
the distance between your death and mine.

We come together at night to pretend
that loneliness is an animal we can cull. But
I watch you sleep, hair splayed across your pillow,
slack mouth breathing for your singular life.

(Today’s poem originally appeared in Thrush Poetry Journal and appears here today with permission from the poet.)

Kristin George Bagdanov is an M.F.A. candidate in poetry at Colorado State University, where she is a Lilly Graduate Fellow. Poems of hers have recently appeared in or are forthcoming from The Los Angeles Review, 32 Poems, CutBank, Redivider, and Rattle. Her chapbook We Are Mostly Water was published by Finishing Line Press in 2012 as part of the New Women’s Voices series.

Editor’s Note: If I had to sum up today’s poem in one word it would be “powerful.” With this piece Kristin George Bagdanov takes on the heavy and the deep; without fear, without apprehension. “Trust me,” she tells us bluntly, “you will / always be alone.” We can love, but “We will always be separate in time, / the distance between our bodies in bed / the distance between your death and mine.” From its biblical entry—as captivating as the origin story it evokes—to its repeated waves of brutal honesty, today’s entry is as well-wrought as the human body in all its striking, singular existence.

Want to read more by and about Kristin George Bagdanov?
Kristin George Bagdanov’s Official Website
32poems
Flyway Journal
Rattle
Buy We Are Mostly Water from Finishing Line Press

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: KAREN CRAIGO

Posted on November 30, 2013 by asitoughttobemagazine

DEATH BY WATER
By Karen Craigo

You imagine the ark
from the outside, the way
most people saw it—shuttered,
huge, already starting to stink.
And there you are beside it,
treading water, reaching out
to touch the unsanded hull,
throat raw from pleading.
Most of us lead dry lives
with a few moist moments
we live for. Which is why
this death is the one
we were born to. Inside
we’re water and bones,
and so we bob on the waves
like a bag of sticks. Once,
all humanity was a forest, felled.
You can put your head under
and remember: didn’t you surge
into this world on a wave, crying,
your mouth full of salt?

(Today’s poem originally appeared in Prairie Schooner and appears here today with permission from the poet.)

Karen Craigo teaches English to international students at Drury University in Springfield, Missouri. A chapbook, Someone Could Build Something Here, was just published by Winged City Chapbook Press, and her previous chapbook, Stone for an Eye, is part of the Wick Poetry Series. Her work has appeared in the journals Atticus Review, Poetry, Indiana Review, Prairie Schooner, Puerto del Sol, The MacGuffin, and others.

Editor’s Note: Against a backdrop of biblical associations, Karen Craigo uses startling, hauntingly beautiful, idiosyncratic imagery to offer incredible insight into the human experience. As readers we are enveloped in that which is at once as old as time and as present as the moment at hand. With Craigo’s words, we are flooded. We, as individuals and as a people, are drowning. But so, too, are we called upon to confront the memory that we surged “into this world on a wave, crying,” our mouths “full of salt.”

Want to read more by and about Karen Craigo?
Buy Someone Could Build Something Here from Winged City Chapbook Press
Atticus Review
Blue Lyra Review
Hobart

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: LINDA STERN ZISQUIT

Posted on November 16, 2013 by asitoughttobemagazine

POSIT
By Linda Stern Zisquit

“Ten measures of beauty came down into the world;

Nine were taken by Jerusalem, one by the rest of the world.”

Tractate Kiddushin

“Ten parts of suffering came down into the world; nine

were taken by Jerusalem, one by the rest of the world.”

Avot d’Rabbi Natan

Had Rachel not looked up

Jacob would not have seen her.

There would have been no water,

no winding dream,

no tribe or unrelenting

portion of sadness

dispersed on his land, his Jerusalem,

and I would not have promised

to gather then home. But Rachel

saw him and he loved her.

She was barren and she suffered

and she followed him.

So I have this heaviness

to bear. Her life before him

had also the dailiness of lives,

an hour at which she would rise and go

to the well. Then out of the blue

her future came crashing against her lids

when she looked up, those hours changed,

and I was moved to his, another well.

(Today’s poem originally appeared in the collection Ritual Bath (Broken Moon Press, 1993), was recently published in The Ilanot Review, and appears here today with permission from the poet.)

Linda Stern Zisquit has published four full-length collections of poetry, most recently Havoc: New & Selected Poems (Sheep Meadow Press, 2013). Return from Elsewhere, her fifth volume of poetry, will be published in Spring 2014. Her other books are The Face in the Window (2004), Unopened Letters (1996), and Ritual Bath (1993). Ghazal-Mazal, a chapbook, appeared in 2011. Her translations from Hebrew poetry include These Mountains: Selected Poems of Rivka Miriam (2010), a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, Let the Words: Selected Poems of Yona Wallach (2006), Wild Light: Selected Poems of Yona Wallach (1997), for which she received an NEA Translation Grant and was shortlisted for the PEN Translation Award, and Desert Poems of Yehuda Amichai (1991). Her work has appeared in journals including The Denver Quarterly, Harvard Review, Paris Review, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, Salmagundi and the Virginia Quarterly Review. Born in Buffalo, NY, Zisquit has lived in Jerusalem with her husband and five children since 1978; she is Associate Professor and Poetry Coordinator for the MA in Creative Writing Program at Bar Ilan University, and runs ARTSPACE, an art gallery in Jerusalem representing contemporary artists.

The Ilanot Review, where today’s poem recently appeared, is a biannual journal of creative writing which publishes a stellar selection of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and literary interviews. The journal publishes two themed issues a year, inviting submissions from English-language poets and writers from anywhere in the world. The Ilanot Review is currently seeking submissions for its winter 2014 edition, through November 30th. The theme of the winter 2014 issue is sacred words.

Editor’s Note: Today’s selection contemplates the question so many of us are wont to ask: “What if?” In today’s piece the poet straddles two worlds; her own life and the biblical tales that shape so much of our modern lives. Within the poet’s words her own life is inextricably linked with the biblical love story of Rachel and Jacob. “Had Rachel not looked up / Jacob would not have seen her,” the poet posits, “But Rachel / saw him and he loved her,” and “So I have this heaviness / to bear.” Had the stories of our people unfolded differently, the poet seems to say, so, too, would our own lives now be different. Time, place, religion, literature, and the poet’s own path are conflated as the poem considers the universal themes of belonging, suffering, love, home, and self.

Want to read more by and about Linda Stern Zisquit?
Buy Havoc from Sheep Meadow Press
Sheep Meadow Press Author Page
Buy Unopened Letters from Amazon
ARTSPACE Gallery

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: ORIT GIDALI

Posted on October 19, 2013 by asitoughttobemagazine

KOHELET
By Orit Gidali, Translated by Marcela Sulak

I, Kohelet, was king of Jerusalem,
I really was.
Treading over a thousand flowers on my way to the white bed
where my wives waited to remove the crown from my head–
made of marzipan in the biting of sweet tongues–
my silk rubbing against their silk, my flesh would choose among
them, and my flesh was already sweet in their flesh.
Kohelet, I held a thousand women
and I didn’t have a single one
I could recognize by smell
or by her skin or her feet,
her steps as she walked away from me: David’s lament.
Her steps toward me: his song.
I am Kohelet, Solomon,
my linen is the mystery of shrouds
and my bitten crown is above me.

קוהלת

אני קוהלת מלך הייתי בירושלים
באמת הייתי
דורך על אלף פרחים בדרכי למיטה הלבנה
שם חיכו נשותי, שהסירו את כתר ראשי
העשוי מרציפן בנגיסת לשונות מתוקות, משיי
מתחכך במשיין, והייתי בוחר מתוכן לבשרי,
ובשרי כבר מתוק בבשרן.
קוהלת החזקתי אלף נשים
ולא היתה לי אישה יחידה
לזהות את ריחה
ועורה ורגליה
צעדיה ממני: קינת דוד
צעדיה אלי: שירתו
אני קוהלת שלמה
סתרי תכריכים של סדיני
וכתרי הנגוס מעלי.

(Today’s poem originally appeared in The Bakery, was published in the collection Esrim Ne’arot LeKane [Twenty Girls to Envy Me] (Sifriat Poalim, Tel Aviv, 2003), and appears here today with permission from the translator.)

Orit Gidali is an Israeli poet. Her first poetry collection, Esrim Ne’arot LeKane [Twenty Girls to Envy Me], was published by Sifriat Poalim in 2003. Gidali is also the author of Smikhut [Construct State] (2009), and the children’s book Noona Koret Mahshavot [Noona the Mindreader] (2007). She is married to poet Ben-Ari Alex, and is a mother, writing workshop facilitator, and lecturer in the Department of Communication at Tel Aviv University.

Marcela Sulak is the author of two collections of poetry and has translated three collections of poetry from the Czech Republic and Congo-Zaire. Her essays appear in The Iowa Review, Rattle, and The Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. She directs the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan University, where she is senior lecturer in American Literature.

Editor’s Note: Kohelet is the original Hebrew name for Ecclesiastes, one of the Writings that comprises a portion of the Hebrew Bible. The book is an autobiographical account of Kohelet’s search for the meaning of life and the best way to live. Kohelet introduces himself as “son of David, king in Jerusalem,” and is therefore sometimes believed to be Solomon. This book, however, was written anonymously and is believed to have ben penned late in the 3rd century B.C.E., while Solomon’s reign was circa 970 to 931 B.C.E.

In today’s piece the poet associates Kohelet with King Solomon and explores the notion that “heavy is the head that wears the crown.” To get to his marriage bed the king must trample a thousand flowers. He has “held a thousand women” (Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines and may have had an affair with the Queen of Sheba), but “didn’t have a single one / [he] could recognize by smell / or by her skin or her feet.” His wives remove his crown from his head—perhaps an allusion to his wives’ polytheism which influenced Solomon and displeased God—and at that his crown is “made of marzipan” and therefore vulnerable to “the biting of sweet tongues.” In the end he is left shrouded in mystery with a bitten crown.

As fascinating as the midrashic element of today’s piece is, it is the vibrant and lyrically explicit language that brings the scene to life. The beauty of the lyric is itself almost biblical: “my silk rubbing against their silk, my flesh would choose among / them, and my flesh was already sweet in their flesh.” It was no small effort on the part of the poem’s translator, Marcela Sulak, whose original work was featured on this series last week, to translate today’s poem from Hebrew into English while still maintaining elements of rhyme, meter, and lyric beauty. This is a piece as rich in English as in the original Hebrew, and which carries as much depth and beauty in both languages.

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: MARCELA SULAK

Posted on October 12, 2013 by asitoughttobemagazine

By Marcela Sulak:

THE CASTING OF LOTS

Dear Ahasuerus, it is eleven-thirty am and my number is one hundred and eighty-six. I feel the lack of communion striving for a higher purpose in this government assistance office, and it is beyond sadness and feet and the distance of aircraft and tires and inner-tubes on turgid rivers in midsummer with aluminum cans of beer. It’s not just the ones who pick discarded numbers from the floor and say they missed their turn. The flower-selling prepubescent children sniffing glue in paper bags outside the margins of the magazine I’m reading remind me of the laundry I hung up that must be dry by now, filled as they are with warmth and wings and snapping.

This office is a fine line. The wind from the open window rustles the pages of my magazine, pumps the lungs of paper bags, lifts the plastic shopping sacks discarded in the fields, fills the vacant sheets.

When God withdraws, we all must breathe a little harder.

Are these hosts the kind of people who refrigerate red wine? I wasn’t breastfed, I smelled different. I never learned to desire consolation prizes. The water hisses from the tap, sliced by the tips of lettuce leaves. The cut-crystal conversation turns on the tiniest incisions. So little of it is about you, you have to address yourself as one of your second persons. At the click of one of our host’s glances, each woman at the table presses forward, like a bullet into the chamber. It goes without saying, this is how I see myself among the women, Dear Ahasuerus, you fuck.

One of the trafficked prostitutes in the Tel Aviv shelter always carries a book with her. When she’s fucked up she reads it upside down. It’s a best seller, a thriller, a romance, so it doesn’t really matter the order of the events. She can describe them in detail afterwards, which she’ll do for you when you ask about her life.

HEBREW LESSONS: LESHALEM
To pay, to bring to a conclusion, bring to perfection, to make peace.

I am not a piece
of cake—sometimes
the eternal á
la mode, which is
to say, I am
your mouth, not your whole
mouth, just the part
that, when full, worries
about its next meal.

ii.

The eggs must first come
to room temperature,
which is to say for
everything there is
time. While the cotton
opened white fists at her
window, one by one
my grandmother beat
six eggs by hand till
they were stiff. The hands
of the kitchen clock
tapped each fat minute,
the ready spoon curved.
The frothy batter
she poured herself into
the tube pan steadied itself
in the wood-fueled oven
and lifted. Those who ate
a single bite were filled
with an inexplicable
happiness. Sometimes
that was enough.

(Today’s poems originally appeared in The Bakery, and appear here today with permission from the poet.)

Editor’s Note: While living and working in Israel for the fall semester I have become inspired by the local English-speaking writing community, as well as the plethora of work being done in translation. I hope to be able to share some of the gems the local writers and translators are creating here with you on this series, beginning today with Marcela Sulak.

Of course I am interested in Sulak’s work, in part, because of its biblical interests and midrashic tendencies. Ahasuerus, for instance, from today’s first piece, was a Persian king and husband of Queen Esther. He chose Esther for his queen after kicking out his first wife, Queen Vashti, for refusing to display herself naked before his guests. The process of choosing Esther as Vashti’s predecessor was more like a casting call; all of the eligible virgins were gathered together, put through months of rigorous beauty rituals, then paraded around for Ahasuerus to choose his favorite from among them. Today, Sulak’s bent on this tale has her channeling these young women on display, noting the lack of communion among women under such competitive circumstances. Sulak eloquently sums up the experience: “It goes without saying, this is how I see myself among the women, Dear Ahasuerus, you fuck.”

But beyond the biblical explorations lie moments of brilliant lyric and philosophy. Moments that stop you dead in your tracks: “When God withdraws, we all must breathe a little harder,” “I am / your mouth, not your whole / mouth, just the part / that, when full, worries / about its next meal,” “which is to say for / everything there is / time.” Sulak’s is writing that considers the historical, the human, and the astronomical through the lens of the day-to-day. Her vivid imagery brings to life the scenes she paints, while the ideas she plants take the reader from the microscopic to the telescopic.

Want to read more by and about Marcela Sulak?
Marcela Sulak’s Official Website
Guernica Mag
Drunken Boat
The Cortland Review
Verse Daily

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: JOHN GUZLOWSKI

Posted on August 24, 2013 by asitoughttobemagazine

THE WORLD AFTER THE FALL
By John Guzlowski

Eve stood there
for a moment
and watched her grace
dry up like water.

Whatever sunshine
had lingered on her skin
was gone

and when
she looked at Adam’s face
she wondered
what she could say
to him.

They had words
of course—
They learned them together
but neither spoke.

What could
she say?

Sorry?

Next time,
it’ll be different?

I didn’t understand?

She just shook her head
and he did too.

(Today’s poem originally appeared in The 2River View, and appears here today with permission from the poet.)

John Guzlowski’s writing has appeared in Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac, The Ontario Review, The Polish Review, Exquisite Corpse, Manhattan Review, Modern Fiction Studies and other journals both here and abroad. Czeslaw Milosz wrote that Guzlowski’s first book of poems, Language of Mules, “astonished” him and that he had “an enormous ability for grasping reality.” Guzlowski’s poems about his parents’ experiences in Nazi concentration camps appear in his book Lightning and Ashes.

Editor’s Note: Today’s poem participates in the ancient tradition of midrash, the questioning of and commenting upon what is written in the Bible. I have been engaged in midrashic studies both in my academic and creative pursuits for many years now, and whenever I come across poems that take part in this ongoing discussion I am drawn to them. The Bible is the foundation of Western civilization, but despite an unconscionable number of narrow-minded of readings and prosthelytizations, The Book is not a static enterprise, not a fixed proscription, but is a living, breathing entity, the questioning of which leads to an understanding of modern (wo)man.

On this series we have seen Betsy Johnson-Miller question the story of the fall, Father Kilian McDonnell question the patriarchal authorship of Genesis, William Kelley Woolfitt explore the story of Samson, and today John Guzlowski joins the mini-midrashic tradition being written within the pages of As It Ought To Be. May the questions be relentless and the conversation never end.

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: THE BAAL SHEM TOV

Posted on July 27, 2013 by asitoughttobemagazine

TWO SOULS
By the Baal Shem Tov

From every human being
there rises a light
that reaches straight to heaven.
And when two souls
that are destined to be together
find each other,
their streams of light flow together,
and a single brighter light goes forth
from their united being.

(Today’s poem is in the public domain, belongs to the masses, and appears here today accordingly.)

The Baal Shem Tov: Rabbi Yisroel (Israel) ben Eliezer (d.1760), often called the Baal Shem Tov, was a Jewish mystical rabbi. He is considered to be the founder of Hasidic Judaism. (Annotated biography of the Baal Shem Tov courtesy of Wikipedia, with edits.)

Editor’s Note: Today’s poem is a quote from the Baal Shem Tov that gives rise to the age old question: What is poetry? If poetry is beautiful lyric that speaks to the human condition, that considers love with eloquence and a care for words and ideas, today’s quote is most certainly that. Today’s post is dedicated to my husband, with whom I am beginning a journey as a “united being.” May we shine brightly together from our single light.

Want to read more by and about the Baal Shem Tov?
Wikipedia
Jewish Virtual Library

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