Cross, do not fail me

            Cross, do not fail me

            when it comes my hour

            to bleed. As to a strong-masted vessel,

            let me be bound to you to share your power.

            Hug me close as the wind we together wrestle.

           
            Lost, let them nail me

            as my ransomed soul

            a steed of spirit mounts and my hungers hang.

            Let me inherit what the jailer stole

            and hidden, as I thirst, what prophets sang.

Oh, for the sighing of the flesh

Samantha Romano, sketch

Oh, for the sighing of the flesh after its own kind,
for the seeking of the eye after other eyes
which, as itself, see form and beauty, 
and must prize
a comeliness to which it must be blind.

Oh, for the wanderings of the mirrored mind
in memory’s research
after its past allies,
for the hungerings of the heart
that tantalize unsullied souls
that have withstood the wind.

This song I fastened
to an earless banner
waving unseen in the night
while scattering the weight
of unnumbered mournings over a life caressless,

and shared what shone through an enshrouded craving
with them who likewise lamented their thankless fate
as criminals awaiting
Someone to arrest us.
x

Kabbalah

Blessing of the Sun, Yoram Raanan

These mysteries —
oh, how they are
but of a friendship truly begun
and gratefully the connecting signs! —
that help us to see
unfolded by stages the Beloved and the Lover
(in all around us as in the one within)
revealed to each other,
and the trailing steps of the first
to travel freely to the depths,
who now becomes the last,
who never must begin.

Let them be to me,
timeless, your embraces
as these few words of mine to you
would clasp
you long and warmly
and firmer than the flesh,
so spirits unhindered by haves and naughts
may mesh,
and hearts in heavy harmony
may grasp
the best and brightest
in each other’s faces.
x