What do I mean by these words

                        What do I mean by these words
                        which contradict each other?                        
                        What is this course I am counseling
                        that seems to lead nowhere sound?
                        
                        These words,                        
                        like sparks spraying                        
                        from the sharpening wheel,                        
                        while what really is the matter                        
                        is shaped and sharpened,
                        they only indicate,                        
                        not the direction of my soul                        
                        nor advice to any,                        
                        but there is a wheel turning,                        
                        and one fashioning a tool somewhere.
                        
                        Again, seek,                        
                        stopping to undo your shoes,                        
                        the holy mountain,                        
                        and then cease,                        
                        dropping to your knees                        
                        beside the stream                        
                        that issues from the root                        
                        of an enormous tree,                        
                        flowering and bearing fruit                        
                        like a luscious fountain,                        
                        and know this — unlike my poems,
                        this is no dream,                        
                        only attainable ingress                        
                        into living eternity.

                        Leave behind all the talk                        
                        lavishing your spirit.                        
                        Approach the source of song,                        
                        more searing as you near it.
                        
                        After words,                        
                        return to your proper place and peel
                        the skin from your eyes                        
                        that were so draped and darkened.
                        They only vindicate,                        
                        not the inspection of your soul                        
                        nor the price of plenty,                        
                        but Wisdom is wild,                        
                        learning does not languish in its lair.
                        
                        Where have you been by your own words,
                        my sister or my brother?                        
                        Take your resourcefulness querying
                        beyond me to holy ground.

David and Jonathan

Two Men, Gayatri Manchanda

Two scholars meet by night on the Temple steps.
The shadows, cold and moistness, and the moon,
no stars in sight, clouds gray and high, and soon
to sing, to study Torah, and to commune
as soul to soul will go the two adepts.

The one has waited but not long,
for they had planned the time beforehand.
Calmly does he lean against a wall,
his hands and face are clean, his head is covered,
in the dark is barely seen his outlined figure
by his yearning friend.

The other having long one like the first expected
sees, blinded by his hope, him standing there,
the brother and the lover of his prayer
to God, with whom to mount the sacred stair
of pure devotion, which by himself
he had neglected.

They meet.
The one his hand his comrade’s shoulder presses,
the other greets him,
on his neck he shapes a kiss, and then as arms embrace
they speak of this fond partnership in Torah,
song, and bliss,
while walking to the Temple’s stark recesses.

The two, for warmth reclining close and under
one heavy blanket like a looming prayer shawl,
cite scriptures, feeding on the beauty of it all,
and praise their Lord for his restraining call,
now and again touch eyes or hands in wonder.

Oh, for the true, redeeming message that comes through
such witnesses in his victorious love
as in his word so said or sung can move!

Oh, for the ecstasies that one cannot tell of
that might arise in lovers like these two!

Get thee a comrade: This teaches that a man should get a comrade for himself, to eat with him, drink with him, study Scripture with him, study Mishna with him, sleep with him, and reveal to him all his secrets, the secrets of the Torah and the secrets of worldly things.

— Abot de Rabbi Natan, Version A
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