e    a

Nothing tells the sand to  l             p.

s

    l

         i

               d

                        e 

f

a

l

l 

p

 o

  u

    r 

into the holes we left behind

or (for) that (matter) waters mingle with ash 

heavy settles first

the floor’s swept-fancies rendered into fat giant dust 

clouds lit up 

electric fire stars

asleep with us, below the tides.

How many hours can I sit here getting old?

Just do the lead crystal ring alarm

draining glass and reckoning history the slow degradation of the king’s rule.

Am I insane

lost

in training

or otherwise disposed

toward heavy things

deluded with fear

alone in mind’s quiet vast

like you?

General turned over

orchard’s yard, burnt;

The smoke and the fire,

sparse,

dotting the horizon.

All these years

between our meeting,

loving and tangle,

our bid’s adieux.

Slowly our love’s tendrils’

climb,

not unlike smoldering coals’

flare under ash;

against time the maze

runs tight circuits

along cool surface ambivalence

and hidden oceans

shy to admit

our flickering light inside.

Greaser poem

your chalk dust

gathered on quarter sawn

planks.

I’ll see your rustle

the swift blade and spilled soda

pop,

remembering that fear we shared;

death.

Dreams,

all them tunnels

burrow down

into chasms;

under constant scour, pruned

between honed flanks

the scouting hordes

lash tentacles

through bait-balled peasantry the husbands’ dire

sprung out, rendered

madness

and caught in the thicket’s latch.

We can like all sorts of things but love is reserved for the soul

for giving and allowing to live, the other,

unhindered by fear

hurt

and want.

Only to give answer to that longing, heartfelt cry,

to cause the welling up

of hope

and to encourage,

lend vitality for the quest,

that your lost place, sweet wandering exile,

is found

here,

our once and newly discovered,

home.

A thought earlier. 

We state, Shema Yisrael HaShem E-lokenu HaShem Echad. 

HaShem is perfect and whole, Echad.

I had heard a difficult idea from Rabbi H. R., who taught in the name of the Shem M’shmuel, that an individual Yid can be flawed, imperfect, as Koheles states, ” with humanity, there is no righteous person in the land who does (only) good and is not sinning,” but the nation is ‘tamim,” perfect and complete, whole, Echad. 

Not going to elaborate much here, but that is connected to the Sh. M’shm. saying over in the name of his father, the A.E., who draws on the the teachings of his master, the B”Sh”t, who followed his teachers, the line moving until Moshe Rabbenu, “this is how, despite being flawed, an individual draws the Shechinah down on themselves. By loving and observing Israel b’tamim, in a state of perfection, as one considers their children, their parents, their spouse, and they may be elevated in purity worthy of receiving the Shechinah, being considered tam themselves.”

I have thoughts on this, since as my holy teacher has stated in the name of the R”M”Ch”L, “there are two portions, tov and ra.*” And as the Vilna Gaon’s brother says in Maalos HaTorah, in the name of his brother, the G”R”A”,  all things (devorim) divisible, are really without count, disappearing into the infinite, which for the discerning, implies and reveals, Echad. This is our portion of the infinite, the dwelling place of our free will, and the secrets housed within.

All the here and now speak to us through layers of, on high, and all is mirrored. One may not deduce they are free falling except through friction. This matter influences that, and that matter influences this but all “is suspended on nothing.” Because there is only One, “nothing more.”

It is not an inexhaustible division, instead, there is resolution in One, the secret that hides in variety, with openness, and is approached only in humility. 

We, the beloved children of HaShem, represent this perfection in our wholeness. As on high, Echad is perfection, implied here but never direct, so too here, in our “upside world,” is the one nation, this Goy Echad, directly through mitzvos and the composition of  a halachic reality, revealing perfection.

We sometimes only see the “flaws” in both the other and in our reality. Hurt, doubt, the fear and the loneliness, advances and fall backs, but with effort, with practiced and honed faith, we can know the perfection, we merit reciting the Shema. 

This is how we should try to achieve the awareness of HaShem’s presence in our lowliness. We see the individual, the shell, that speaks or mistreats us, or us, them, in anguish, from doubt, fear, hurt. And we sometimes judge. But the whole, the worlds in them, unite, like that shared presence of our nationhood, who being uncountable, drift into the infinite, until arriving at that point, before the two tablets, when our sparks, as the cut crystal glimmer of sunlight on broken water, the nearer to you, varied, the further away, seamlessly one light, dance into unity and we are Echad, Our Torah climbing and embracing, becoming song.

HaShem knows, my lowliness can feel unbound and Dovid speaks to me, taught to me by my masters in Tehillim 73 22/23, a song I sometimes sing on Shabbos.

P.A. Chapter 3 Mishna 19

You know it so well, but this is a thought to consider. HaShem knows all, outside of what we know, which is time, space, and decision.

Brachas 33b:

All is in the hands of HaShem except the fear of Shemayim.

With a smidgeon of consideration we can realize, all actions, being permeated potentially with fear of shemayim, that this gate is considerably wide open. Same with the conundrum when trying to reconcile Divine Knowledge and free will.

The mishna quoted above uses the language, “qol,” all. Inclusive. This is like my Master instructed me regarding, “all is vanity,” from Koheles. It is not vainness, as in “you’re so vain,” instead, hevel, is breath, an exhalation. All exists in a breath and we may take this precious breath and act on it, imbuing it with substance. This is revealed in the gap of the hay, wherein Israel is distinguished because of our focus, our keeping guard over matzos and being forbidden chametz. As my master instructed in the name of the Zohar, chametz and matzo are essentially, almost, the same letters except for the gap in the hay. Daas ahztmi, that gap becomes everything as our Ch’Z’L’ teach, the ikkur is on the interior element and as we learn and may deduce, only Israel has exited Mitzrayim.

HaShem’s foreknowledge is not as ours, detailed edifice against the backdrop of waste, the form, choice driven. It is total and infinite and for the human experience, without limit. We have free will because this totality is utterly indecipherable to us, except for our shared “daled amos halacha.” Because of this we are driven to decide, to complete the picture, and to reveal something of substance, rich in yiras Shemayim. Our choices alter our outcomes, they certainly do, because within this cleft, this exhalation,  we complete our share of the final details, be they as ephemeral as that gap in the hay but (I am too embarrassed to claim definitive knowledge on this matter) we may not alter the Abishter’s outcome. It is incorrect to say by us, HaShem knows a static portrayal of our destinies for, b’emes, there is nothing but life and perfection by HaShem and we may not observe this totality in our world. With us, this process of knowing and defining requires our choosing, our deciding which path to take, which manner to behave, and from what we choose, all other potentials die on an unchosen path.

There is great difficulty to honestly feel the Other as yourself but that concealed soul is beloved and whole, singularly unique, and life is like the Pi conundrum for all of us exiled together. We are neither defeated or abandoned, HaShem elevates us, but still, we are as squares trying to become circles.