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Below is another poem from the Rodak archives, composed for the same woman to whom this previously posted poem was addressed. This one is obviously more appropriate to her then still embryonic vocation as a rabbi:
Song for Leah
Leah, my face in your eyes,
dark stars, flashing on and off,
as night more slowly turns to day
than love devolves into sorrow.
Leah, your name is lovely
to my tongue. I do not hate you.
Though I loved your sister first,
I cherish all that you have borne for me.
Leah, your lips are dry,
chapped, as if in fever.
But your proud brow is cool,
smooth as a patriarch’s proscription.
Leah, is it your own?
Or is it Laban’s will,
rising like Sinai
behind your eyes?
Leah, time's bright eye
has focused too acutely,
parching love’s most tender flesh,
leaving my heart a desert place.
Leah, you show me out.
You fix the latch.
You shoot the bolt.
Life is a caravan, departing unladen.
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The photograph, taken during my travels to the Holy Land, back in the day when “Leah” was more recently in my life, is of the desert near the Dead Sea.
Song for Leah
Leah, my face in your eyes,
dark stars, flashing on and off,
as night more slowly turns to day
than love devolves into sorrow.
Leah, your name is lovely
to my tongue. I do not hate you.
Though I loved your sister first,
I cherish all that you have borne for me.
Leah, your lips are dry,
chapped, as if in fever.
But your proud brow is cool,
smooth as a patriarch’s proscription.
Leah, is it your own?
Or is it Laban’s will,
rising like Sinai
behind your eyes?
Leah, time's bright eye
has focused too acutely,
parching love’s most tender flesh,
leaving my heart a desert place.
Leah, you show me out.
You fix the latch.
You shoot the bolt.
Life is a caravan, departing unladen.
___________________________________
The photograph, taken during my travels to the Holy Land, back in the day when “Leah” was more recently in my life, is of the desert near the Dead Sea.
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