I See That I Must Give What

I Wanted A Line In A Poem To Be The Hollow Ney Of The Dervish Orchestra Whose Plaintive Wail Is A Call To God. But All I Achieved Was Awkward Shrieking. Not Even The Pure Shriek Of A Reed In The Rain.

When My Parents Were Liberated, Four Years Before I Was Born, They Found That The Ordinary World Outside The Camp Had Been Eradicated. There Was No More Simple Meal, No Thing Was Less Than Extraordinary: A Fork, A Mattress, A Clean Shirt, A Book. Not To Mention Such Things That Can Make One Weep: An Orange, Meat And Vegetables, Hot Water. There Was No Ordinariness To Return To, No Refuge From The Blinding Potency Of Things, An Apple Screaming Its Sweet Juice.

There's A Moment When Love Makes You Believe In Death For The First Time. You Recognize The One Whose Loss, Even Contemplated, You'll Carry Forever, Like A Sleeping Child. All Grief, Anyone's Grief...is The Weight Of A Sleeping Child.

Trees For Example, Carry The Memory Of Rainfal. In Their Rings We Read Ancient Weather - Storms, Sunlight And Temperatures, The Growing Seasons Of Centuries. A Forest Shares A History Which Each Tree Remembers Even After It Has Been Felled.

It Is Not A Person’s Depth You Must Discover, But Their Ascent. Find Their Path From Depth To Ascent.