Just say if I’m disturbing you,

He said as he stepped over the threshold,

And I'll leave immediately.

You do more than disturb me,

I answered,

You turn my whole existence upside down.

Welcome.

-  Eeva Kilpi (1928 - )

Thirst

 by Mary Oliver

Another morning and I wake with thirst
for the goodness I do not have. I walk
out to the pond and all the way God has
given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord,
I was never a quick scholar but sulked
and hunched over my books past the hour
and the bell; grant me, in your mercy,
a little more time. Love for the earth
and love for you are having such a long
conversation in my heart. Who knows what
will finally happen or where I will be sent,
yet already I have given a great many things
away, expecting to be told to pack nothing,
except the prayers which, with this thirst,
I am slowly learning.

My Way

By Blu Greenberg,

From Black Bread: Poems, After the Holocaust- Ktav, 1995

I am the princess on the pea
That's the way I'm going to be
Creature comforts all for me
Like my chaise lounge by the sea

"Ooh, it's raining, hail a cab"
"Stop! I must cotton this toenail scab"
"Radio's loud, shut off that blab"
"Candlelight dinner, you pay the tab"

"Please don't interrupt, I've a deadline to meet"
"Order by phone, I can't stand on my feet"
"Air - condition this hot, hot suite"
"Ah, it's time for my persimmon treat"

"Off I go to visit my mother"
"This shop is not stocked, let's go find another"
"I'm busy now, kids, go ask your father"
"If the trip is too long I simply won't bother"

"This elastic waist's a bit too tight"
"Open the shades, I need more light"
"Fax it to me, I want it tonight"
"Let's pay the fine and avoid a fight"

"I'm feeling tired, I'll take a nap"
"Come sweet child, sit on my lap"
"I'll have spring water, it's better than tap"
It's chilly in here, please fetch my wrap"

"Get the best seats at the new play"
"Porter, come carry this suitcase away"
"I wish to have it done my way"
I'd not have survived a single day.

For Rachel Hadas

Old wounds leave good hollows

Where one who goes can hold

Himself in ghostly embraces

Of former powers and graces

Whose domain no strife mars—

I am made whole by my scars

For whatever now displaces

Follows all that once was

And without loss stows

Me into my own spaces



Samuel Menashe





From The Niche Narrows: New
and Selected Poems, Talisman
House, Publishers

By John Roedel

 whenever I feel helpless

in this overwhelming world

I become a helper

oh, oh,

my love

on the days

when it feels like

I have no power

I serve others

you see,

whenever I wash

the world’s feet

my hands

immediately

stop shaking

~ and I know peace

~ and I reclaim my power

~ and I get back to work

 

After
By Stephen Dunn


Jack and Jill at home together after their fall,

the bucket spilled, her knees badly scraped,

and Jack with not even an aspirin for what’s broken.

We can see the arduous evenings ahead of them.

And the need now to pay a boy to fetch the water.

Our mistake was trying to do something together,

Jill sighs. Jack says, If you’d have let go for once

you wouldn’t have come tumbling after.

He’s in a wheelchair, but she’s still an item--

for the rest of their existence confined

to a little, rhyming story. We tell it to our children,

who laugh, already accustomed to disaster.

We’d like to teach them the secrets

of knowing how to go too far,

but Jack is banging with his soup spoon,

Jill is pulling out her hair. Out of decency

we turn away, as if it were possible to escape

the drift of our lives, the fundamental business

of making do with what’s been left us.

 Love is Not All (Sonnet XXX)

By Edna St. Vincent Millay

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.