Poetry | Bob Schwartz

Perpetual Adoration

“It is with great sadness we had to make the decision to close our beautiful monastery in Tucson, Arizona as of February 26, 2018. Our sisters have relocated to the motherhouse in Clyde, Missouri.”

In hoc signo:
No Trespassing.
Benedictine Monastery of the
Sisters of Perpetual Adoration.
The sisters have left the building
St. Benedict Jesus God too.
The sisters to Missouri
The rest homeless for now.
Carved wooden doors locked
Bushes for the butterflies
Cut back and soon gone.
Who by fire
Who by water
Who by sledgehammer
Wrecking ball dynamite.
After the noisy dusty struggle
Mountains abide.

Note: For an earlier post about this building, sold to be replaced by something residential or commercial, see Houses of Worship As Reminders on the Street.

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March 23, 2018

Dish of Dice

“I am going to build a church someday. It will have a holy of holies and a holy of holy of holies, and in that ultimate box will be a random number table.”
Gregory Bateson

Different dice
On the altar
Four six eight sides
Ten and twenty
Sleeping in the dish
Awake and rolling
Prophets with a message
Plan and prepare
To laugh cry and play
The numbers rise up
See their beauty and wisdom
Listen to
The last lesson you need

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March 12, 2018

Bird Talk

In China
Chinese food is just food
In the yard
Bird song is just
Morning chatter

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March 11, 2018

Yesh Me’ayin (Creatio Ex Nihilo)

Ayin

Yesh Me’ayin (Creatio Ex Nihilo)

Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Nothing.

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February 28, 2018

Explorers and Wanderers

Honor the explorers
(whole continents by name)
Disdain the wanderers
Destination nowhere
Leaving nothing

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February 26, 2018

The Wandering

Close your eyes
Through the forest
Wade the river
To the canyon’s edge
Open
Fly or fall?

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February 18, 2018

Is Peace Enough?

The birds are busy
Round the yard
I listen lulled
Sorting strands of song
The birds don’t think
They are peaceful
They are just busy
Being birds

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February 14, 2018

St. Rafqa’s Knit Haiku

For my beautiful and beloved knitter

St. Rafqa’s Knit Haiku

Who needs the arrows
of Valentine when we knit
with Rafqa’s needles

Note: I went looking for the Catholic patron saint of knitters—there’s usually an official or unofficial saint for everything—only to discover that there is no consensus about knitting. Suggestions include Saints Fiachra/Fiacre, Rafqa/Rebecca, Dymphna, Lucy, Ursula, Sebastian or Blaise. The idea was to connect the arrows of St. Valentine to the needles of St. Whoever. The haiku idea comes from having found the Japanese Knitting Stitch Bible as a gift for a knitter. All in all, a pretty long explanation for a pretty obscure poem. Happy Valentine’s Day.

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February 13, 2018

Year Time (Yahrzeit)

Kaddish After Finishing a Tranctate of Talmud – David Wolk

Year Time (Yahrzeit)

The folder tabbed Dad
Reduces that day
That week
Those years
To an inventory of moments.
A poem for the dying
“It is never too late,
And it is always.”
An obituary draft
“He was a great man
Who showed us how to be great people.”
A speech
“His heart never failed anyone.”
I light a candle today
That I’ve missed before
I recite Kaddish
That I’ve chanted a thousand times
As reader and sometimes mourner.
The yahrzeit calculator
Tells me the Hebrew date
For year times to come
A list to 2038.
I wonder which of them
I will have to miss
If there is a folder
A poem a speech
For me.

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February 4, 2018

Sake Telegram

Sake chilled or warm?
Glass or cup?
Why flip one coin
When you can toss three?
The I Ching will know.
6 9 7 9 7 8
A hexagram telegram:
“During a time of great exceeding,
inevitably there is extraordinary action.
Extraordinary action needs great nourishment.
The roof is about to fall and
it is time to go somewhere or to do something
to remedy the situation.”
A glass of chilled sake
I read it again
A cup of warm sake
I read it again.
Great nourishment.
The roof is not falling
But the moon is fulling.
More sake
Not chilled or warm.
I toss the coins in the jar
But can’t read the wet heads or tails.
It is time
To go somewhere or do something
To remedy the situation.
What time is it?
Where should I go?
What should I do?
Time for another telegram.

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Category: Poetry