Deuteronomy 3: In Writing

Look out 
on unfurled longing

rising from the east, 

outstretched to the south,

winding to the setting sun

a lodestar of desire.

I am surrounded

by caverns of craving

wellings of want.

To see, and not to have
not to have and not to hold
not to hold and not to touch
not to touch and not to taste

Gritty and parched,

my mouth is a desert

never to be quenched.

my flesh,

is wavering, evaporating

as even your face melts away.

My call is lost in the heights

an eagle circling in lonely flight.

Genesis 48: In Writing

At the end of long, twisted road

from the place it began

the dreams that fell

heavy in my palm

slip-slid between my fingers

to the ground

The prayers I prayed

oaths I oathed

doors I closed

naked nights spread on the earth

sights seen and unseen

The unexpected that sprang to greet me

on the lone plane of between

she died on me

earth spreading before, below and after

I had no faith to see your face

now I find you budding beneath me

round, heavy, sprouting

springing through my fingers

To see your face

I found no faith

Now I see your future

Flittering through the deeps

In flashes of flame 

***

All the visions

beginnings

lonely dreams

beneath  bare skies

all the fell into my hand

and trickled from it

What was born,

and bears

birthed in pain and shame

I call by name

Bury the loss

in the weeping moss

along the littered road

with darkening eyes

that can no longer see day

Shepherding the dark

she comes with the sheep

I throw my clenched blessing

into the fish-haunted deeps

Genesis: Chapter 48

Giving over
what was given



past, present, future



Blessing, loss
reversals
redemption












[for full chapter, click here
A return to the past, and an investment in the future. Jacob, who "took the blessing with cunning," now becomes the one who gives blessing, his eyes "heavy" as were his father's, "unable to see." In a recreation of that pivotal scene, the younger once again is give precedence over the firstborn--but this time through a conscious, insistent choice.
Jacob reiterates the primal turning points of his life: the leave-taking from  his parents, where he slept in Luz, and the death of Rachel after his return to Luz, "As for me, when I came from Padan, Rachel died on me, on the road...and I buried her along the road." There are splits that are eternal, that cannot be undone. But there is also hope: "To see your face I did not believe, and now God has shown me your seed as well." The focus is on what is born (nolad, molad, ashe yalad), on dreams of the future. The "blessing" given in the past, is given to Joseph in the present, and  given over to his children in the future: "by you will Israel bless." Death encroaches--"Behold, I die"--but the future intimates redemption: the root "gaal", redemption, is introduced for  the first time]

Chapter 46: In Writing

I will not fear night-terror

the gaping pit of dark

will close my eyes

and lay me down

in the tender shelter of your palm

knowing day-break

when the sun climbs its steep incline

gathering the winds

I am here

recalled by name

To send forth

and know return

see the ladder

build its rungs

To come, and find you coming

over the edge of the hill

flowing with the sheep

familiar taste of tears and loss

your pulse pulsing mine

On its beat

I die

ready to be

with you

now that I see your living face

Genesis: Chapter 44

"What is the deed you
have done?"



Reiteration
Recreation



Who is exposing whom?
What is the exchange?












[for full chapter, see here
The issues set into place in the last two chapters come to a head. The issue of exchange and commodification is highlighted ad absurdum. Once again, the money (kesef) is returned; this time, with the addition of the silver (kesef) cup planted in Benjamin's bag. "Why have you exchanged bad in place (tahat) good?" thunders the steward, utterly ignoring the glistening money sitting at the top of all the opened bags. Only the personalized cup (gevi-i) matters. The full power of Judah's bond is the counterpoint: not value, but an existential bond, a life for a life: "Your servant-slave (avdeha) has bound himself for the youth to his father...Let your slave/servant stay in place (tahat) the youth as a slave to my master, and he shall go up with his brothers."
 "With this you will be tested," Joseph informed his brothers, "when your youngest brother comes here." The hidden issue resonating since Joseph saw "his brother, son of his mother" now comes to the open. The jealousy and breakdown has always been about Rachel--most beloved, always hovering on  the edge of "nothing". "Is it not enough you have taken my husband?" Leah had accused, denying her sister any place in the family. The sale of Joseph reflected the same impulse. Now Joseph recreates the situation with Benjamin, who becomes the "enenu"--the one "that is not," in a thrice-repeated echo of Reuben's despairing cry upon finding Joseph gone.
A change has taken place in the "many days." Judah's matter-of-fact, unemotional approach comes is defense of the relationships he had attempted to reduce to commerce. "He remains alone from his mother, and my father loves him" "My father had said: 'You know that my wife birthed me two sons." This bald re-iteration conveys the emotional truth powering Reuben's desperate offer of killing his two sons--Joseph and Benjamin are the only ones who matter. Yet even as Judah conveys what had driven the brothers to sell Joseph in the first place, he also repeatedly denounces himself: "we will send our father's old age in agony to the Pit."  The attempt to save Benjamin is the acceptance of guilt and a responsibility beyond emotion, rejection and pain.]

Genesis 31: In Writing

Mine, ours, yours
possessing and possessed
a terrible tangle of belonging and longing

                "He's taken what's ours...
                from ours he has made..."

                given

               "we have no part
                been sold and eaten"
                alienated

To take
to have
to steal
to lose....

I entered and saw you
opened a well of longing
Now I seal the path
and you waver
 under the shadow of knowing
the nothingness that is ours

stolen hearts
stolen days
stolen selves
stolen gods...

and you are stolen away

Genesis: Chapter 31

 A closed                               box

Open well            closed passage

And the distant                 journey

   

                  becomes home

Longing                            kisses

(For full chapter, click here
This chapter is so dense, I feel every drawing is inadequate...
What stood out first is the chiastic structure: we have here an inverted closing to Jacob's arrival:
A second escape (barakh)
a second exit (yatza)
a focus on stones, and the root gal (to remove a stone, a pile of stones)
A second matzeva/ altar
The question of stealing and possession
and a goodbye kiss in place of the opening kiss to Rachel
But even as we seem to have closure, there are intimations of disasters to come, from Rachel's death, to the loss of Yosef)

Genesis 30: In Writing

To increase
grow solid
or cease

feel the force of
nothingness
the echoing hole

I am
a cipher
a hollow scream
the gaping O

my voice trails
fades
lost in
the cacophony of the many
who will gather it together?

I am
the barren tree
reaching dried branches
towards winter

the thickets thicken
as I feel the press
of emptiness
between my leaves

Genesis: Chapter 30

A tangled triangle
move and counter-move





and within
the terrible emptiness




Tottering on no-being
"If nothingness..."









(To read the full chapter, click here
The first verse holds a powerful punch: "Give me children, and if not [lit. if nothingness, ayin] I die
echoes of Rebecca's  "Why am I?"
The liminal state of motherhood raises existential questions, uncertainty about the limits of self
For Rachel, the problem is more acute. She seems to hover at the edge of non-being. In the morning, transformed into "she is Leah"; her sister dominates the family, at last even claiming Jacob as her husband, whom Rachel stole. A growing gap, in which she is begging to be heard, and is drowned out...)

Genesis 29: In Writing

Morning,
and the path unfolds
back to the place before

Tangled time drawing together
do I sleep
or do I waken?

The sun is high
yet vanishing
the stone flits from my fingertips

you appear
my distant vision
and my soul quickens
in reverberation

the well opens
within me
deep waters
haunted by reflections
telling me that all is gathered together
that return to its place


                     ***

Rachel

You are my time
and my desire
my dream
and impending loss

You are the light
that disappears with morning,
the fugitive beam refracted
in the rolling waves of ewes
in the whispers of the wind
in the floating stone
the gaping waters

your lips touch mine
a quenching kiss
I wake,
and you are someone else

Genesis: Chapter 29

Absolute place
to local place





Reverberations
as time twists on itself
and the vertical axes goes down

angels and women












(For the full text of the chapter, click here
There is a dreamlike continuity between Jacob's dream, and his arrival in Haran. The introductory anaphora of "hene...ve-hine--behold...and behold"; the stone beneath his head is  transformed into the stone that seals the well; the focus on place, here transformed into a local, specific placement rather than "the place"; the repeated word "return"--to return home, to return  the stone to its proper place; the focus on day and its ending--the day disappearing, the day is yet high. The scene has a surreal quality of bringing the dream into the real world. Dream-like, people begin to transform one into the other--"Behold [Rachel] is Leah", and the time frames melt one into the other. Jacob's arrival echoes Eliezer's; his crying echoes Esau's...)