Writing the Poem at 5 A.M - Poem

Judaism, Spring, 2002

Writing the Poem at 5 A.M.


Yellow skinned hunched
in night shirt burning
the oil in pre-dawn near
absolute silence
               (twitter of finches
in the ivy crochets
next day's business/ a car
abrades the roadway)

               The fetters of
human contact like unwound
phylacteries laid by

Fresh from the bath of
dreams that know neither
age nor boundary

               His seven foot
wingspan unfurls & he floats
thru the empyrean

As from an ancient
Torah unscrolls his song.