Absinthine
Rich with wild wormwood
lightly bitter in my taste
the triune in my body
is deeply interlaced
and I am green as glory
with bewitchment in my soul
waiting in the glass
for the God to make me whole
Wild and unruly
acute but hardly sane
I stand upon the table
waiting for the rain
rain drops down now slowly
sweet and cold as ice
heaven interfuses
and I louche to paradise
Light Is Love
Sing a song and let it soar
before is snapped the silver cord;
bear your burden, had from birth,
but bear it lightly on this earth;
though life be lonely, and living cruel,
yet light is love, and love is true.
Catch the light and let it leap
or fly away on flitted feet;
catch it in a crystal shard
or show it pinned upon your heart;
weave it well upon the loom;
for light is love, and love is true.
Pardes
Tremendous in its power is the breathing of the word
Without it reason falters, speech rots with foul decay
The eyes blind themselves with the brightness of bonfires unleashed
My brother is in the garden cutting up the shoots
My brother is struck with madness, enslaved to a fickle moon
My brother is bound in silence to the graveyards of the dead
For mountains tangible to minds cannot be grasped in hand
But only wholly loved
****
The last of these, by the way, is an allusion to Hagigah 14b, in which four rabbis attain to such mystical heights that they glimpsed paradise: Ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, Acher, and Akiba. Ben Azzai died; Ben Zoma went insane; Acher 'cut the shoots', i.e., became a heretic; only Akiba departed in peace.
