Songs from the Diaspora
Songs From the Diaspora is a weekly poetry blog featuring poetry inspired by the Torah portion, Haftorah or other text, and sometimes simply just the world around me. This week, Parashat Ekev was my source material, and I was focused on writing about listening, turning away from listening, and the idea and experience of possession.
Ekev
Lashes knit
The leaflets of my chest
strike open
like ears to the rushing sound
Each day a new taste
beneath my fingertips
as they trace crisp print
Only this, Only this, Only how
to break ourselves of the habit
of forgetting ourselves of
the trickery of ourselves
the molten worst —
Watery ash lining the pit
How much we prefer to see than to listen
Only this. Only this.
The valves swoosh open
At a bend
Rain clatters my hair like sheaves
mixing the earth about me
cooling to a fine clay
On the bones of this new thing,
Possession
Rising its knobbed spine
milk veined
The land a sweet burst of fruit on the tongue
a quick wide filling
Before the heart contracts
