Ex Nihilo
When once was nothing
Was something?
Where once was nothing
Was nowhere?
Know everything
Believe in what you know
And nothing else?
Believe everything
And know nothing?
Aleph to tav
Alpha to omega
Awwal to akkir.
Is this the emet
The truth?
© Bob Schwartz 2017
Morning Practice
Laugh in the morning
Dance in the morning
Harder than it seems
Pantry (Morning Explorer)
In the beginning is
The same breakfast
Or so it starts.
But the pantry shelves
Are so full of wholesome ingredients
It seems impossible to ignore.
It isn’t the prospect of a new tasty dish
It is the possibility the morning sun offers
Who am I
Creative cook and diner
To ignore it?
© Bob Schwartz 2017
Note: Yes, it is the last morning of Passover, and yes, it has been a week since breakfast was pancakes, and yes, this should be a picture of matzo brei. But this poem containing a breakfast metaphor arose spontaneously today, and Passover or not, pancakes are a beautiful breakfast sight. Tomorrow.
Ugly Building
Having built a thing
So ugly and misshapen
I cannot expect
Satisfaction or praise
Who would admire such a thing
Who would live in it?
Yet there it is
And there it remains
Until the forces of
Weather disaster and time
Bring it to ruin.
In the right light
The right time of day or night
Its qualities appear
And if weary
You will find a place
To rest or sleep.
© Bob Schwartz 2017
Skyscraper
I marvel at those
Who mined iron
Forged steel
Built buildings
That would stand
A thousand years.
I scrape along the ground
Finding rocks
That could be fool’s gold or ore.
Never a skyscraper
But here look
This is the real thing!
© Bob Schwartz 2017
Ghosts
The thoughts dark and bright
Just ghosts to be whisked away
By a wisp of wind
The Mountain and the Cross
How is the view
From up there?
Can you see
How you got there?
Others look
At every act you took
Word you spoke
Song you sang
Pull them apart
Put them together
A journey
That never seems to end.
For you it ends here
For a time
On the mountain and the cross.
A privileged child
A prince
A prodigy
A champion of the people
An enemy
A wise man
A miracle worker embarrassing mere magicians
A leader
A rebel
How did that rebellion go
How is it now?
One mistake after another
Has cost you everything
Won you something
But what in the end
Did it all mean?
(Jesus wonders
If he might have lived longer
Not one hundred twenty
But more than thirty three.
Moses has no complaint
About the number
And would not trade places
Sitting on a mountain
Not hanging from a cross
But regrets having to survey
An unreachable destination.)
You were just infants
Too young to remember
How it began.
Leave it to others
To imagine that past
And future.
You have no choice
But to let them see and speak for you
As you saw and spoke for others.
Now your eyes and mouth are closed
In dark silence from a height.
© Bob Schwartz 2017
Sunday Birds
I heard the birds chattering in the trees
About weather and breakfast
About which service
They might attend
What they might wear
This Sunday morning.
So many decisions
And opinions
So much music.
© Bob Schwartz
Thought Gone North
The most clever thought
That might change the world
Interrupted
By spring geese loudly returning
Gone north
And now
The world will just have to
Change itself
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, LI
Song of Myself, I
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy
Note: Not much to say about Walt Whitman that isn’t already said. Above is a picture of the Walt Whitman Bridge, connecting Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Camden, New Jersey across the Delaware River. Besides bridges, Whitman also inspired modern poetry and pieces of modern life. The Body Electric that he sung is what he lived, envisioned and wrote, and is still more than we understand. Please read Walt Whitman.
