Every Poetic Gezundheit
p
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I am not sentimental about old men
mumbling the Hebrew by rote
with no more feeling than one says gesundheit
- Marge Piercy
- Marge Piercy
Amidst hearing
Even while seeing
Poets can be deaf
Poets can be blind
Missing what they miss
Wishing not to find
Many cramped rooms
Filled with old men
Many words, many years
Again, again.
Marge Piercy likes
Feeling every moment but
Is unsentimental
About old Jewish men
Reciting words by rote
Did Marge’s movement
Trading dusty books for ripe tomatoes
Get it better by and large?
Are their young not riding by rote?
Mumbling their own gezundheits?
Building their own temples?
Even if for her
It must be either or
Has Marge ever wondered
If that’s the way it is?
Has it dawned on her that
Maybe these men’s mumbled words
Have carried them to survive to see
More blessings than she can imagine?
I’d write more, but I’m tired
From rising early today
Listening and mumbling
For three hours with ten
Ninety year old men
These are men
who’d sooner die
Than miss one morning of prayer
Men who count their blessings
Every krecht, every day
Men whose every gezundheit
Is more poetic than any
Award winning sneeze.
posted by rabbi neil fleischmann @ 11:01 PM
12 Comments:
I loved this!- and the thoughtfulness behind this poem- and its looking beyond the surface-and seeing lots of sides of the coin- and the beauty and poignancy (both palpable)of the "men's mumbled words carrying them to blessing"- (sorry for paraphrasing)- awesome!
thanks maayan. i hope the poem achieves all those thng you say (hard to tell for me). her poem hit me deeply and evoked a strong response.
"men's mumbled words carrying them to blessing" is good, perhaps this was a suggeston? please let me know any advce as to how to twaek and improve (and perhaps work in that phrase).
i struggled on this one to really make it good. it's a long way from Kansas for me (Kansas being the haiku).
In an earlier version one line read "Again Again." This later became "Again, again." I felt that the latter fit better, while the former may have been stronger, but isolated it from the rest of the style of the rest of the poem.
Thoughts? Anyone?
I really like it how you have it. I bet Sarah Shapiro would too for the collection for which she's collecting. I was just paraphrasing what I recalled and it came out like that, "men's mumbled words carrying them to blessing"-feel free to use it if you like it!
What is the poem's title?
I think it's good, but I'm bothered by the sense that it's too derivative of Piercy's line in her poem. It's too obviously a response to her meanness. I would prefer to see a poem that stands on its own as a celebration of our way of life, with perhaps only a glancing allusion to hers. But of course you are under no obligation to produce what I would prefer.
Also, most of the freight is being carried by the ten old men, who, I'm afraid, might just be too frail for the task. For one thing, there are indeed plenty of those elderly types (and younger ones) who truly don't put much thought into their prayers and blessings (much less their gesundheits). The point (as I see it) is that it doesn't matter. The actions themselves (and the mesiras nefesh expended to perform them) are enough and more than enough. This ties in to what I said above: I think you're responding too directly to her attack by stressing the greatness (perhaps illusionary) of the old men. There's room for that, but it shouldn't be the whole poem.
I also think that it's important to show that the religion is not just for old men; it's for the young, the middle-aged, for girls and women etc. And there should be some expression of the idea of how exalting our mundane lives by bringing God into it is the real blessing, and that this is best performed in the way He instructed us to.
Of course, you can't squeeze a handbook to Judaism into a poem, but that's what I'd like to see.
Oh, and to complete my shopping list, I'd like the language to be more vigorous, with less of the "old" imagery (cramped rooms, old men etc.).
That's the poem I'd write, only I can't, so ...
Please don't take this as criticism; you asked for a critique and this is mine.
Now for what I liked:
Amidst hearing
Even while seeing
Poets can be deaf
Poets can be blind
Missing what they miss
Wishing not to find
Very nicely phrased, though I'm not sure about "amidst," whose meaning I associate with being physically "among" others.
Many cramped rooms
Filled with old men
Many words, many years
Again, again.
Again, nicely phrased, but I'd get rid of "cramped," and "old men."
Marge Piercy likes
Feeling every moment but
Is unsentimental
About old Jewish men
Reciting words by rote
Good point about the inherent contradiction in her position.
Did Marge’s movement
Trading dusty books for ripe tomatoes
Get it better by and large?
Are their young not riding by rote?
Mumbling their own gezundheits?
Building their own temples?
An okay argument, but one that she can easily dismiss by saying that this is precisely her point - people must learn to feel and grasp the moment.
Even if for her
It must be either or
Has Marge ever wondered
If that’s the way it is?
Has it dawned on her that
Maybe these men’s mumbled words
Have carried them to survive to see
More blessings than she can imagine?
Very good, but would be much stronger as an assertion rather than a question.
I’d write more, but I’m tired
From rising early today
Listening and mumbling
For three hours with ten
Ninety year old men
I like this verse a lot; it's very clever.
These are men
who’d sooner die
Than miss one morning of prayer
Men who count their blessings
Every krecht, every day
This struck me as being over the top. I don't know anyone who'd rather die than miss one day of prayer. (Also, it's "krechzt.")
Men whose every gezundheit
Is more poetic than any
Award winning sneeze.
Again, over the top; who puts that much thought into a gesundheit; you're just reacting to her shtuch, and shtuching her back. Also, I don't get the line about award winning sneezes. Is it a gibe at Piercy? Did she win an award for the poem?
I hope this was not too direct; I took you at your word. And hey, you can ignore me if you like; what do I know about poetry? Nothing really.
Also, it's "krechzt.")
I mean "krechtz."
This comment has been removed by the author.
I check here often.
I wait in vain for response.
I fear I offend.
pprfjhI am pleased, nay, proud of the poem. Your long thorough critique was appreciated Kishke. I'm not sure why, it wasn't offense, but there was some reason - I'm sure - that I felt like leaving that comment be. I took in some of the points, some I accepted some I disagreed with, but mostly I moved on. Part of what you were saying was that you wanted to see a different poem. Maybe one day I'll write that one. This poem was a strongly felt direct reaction to that other poem. A friend of mine who is a talented and accomplished writer told me that her poetic response to that poem would be "Oh, shut up." Meanwhile an editor has excepted my poem for an anthology and I'm thankful to G-d and pretty darn pleased about that.
I am pleased, nay, proud of the poem. Your long thorough critique was appreciated Kishke. I'm not sure why, it wasn't offense, but there was some reason - I'm sure - that I felt like leaving that comment be. I took in some of the points, some I accepted some I disagreed with, but mostly I moved on. Part of what you were saying was that you wanted to see a different poem. Maybe one day I'll write that one. This poem was a strongly felt direct reaction to that other poem. A friend of mine who is a talented and accomplished writer told me that her poetic response to that poem would be "Oh, shut up." Meanwhile an editor has excepted my poem for an anthology and I'm thankful to G-d and pretty darn pleased about that.
Okay, great. Thanks for the response.
Mazel Tov Rabbi Fleischmann on having your poem accepted into an anthology! That's an anthology I look forward to reading. May your beautiful work continue to impact on others and reach wider and wider audiences.
The art of blessing the day
This is the blessing for rain after drought:
Come down, wash the air so it shimmers,
a perfumed shawl of lavender chiffon.
Let the parched leaves suckle and swell.
Enter my skin; wash me for the little
chrysalis of sleep rocked in your plashing.
In the morning the world is peeled to shining.
This is the blessing for sun after long rain:
Now everything shakes itself free and rises.
The trees are bright as pushcart ices.
Every last lily opens its satin thighs.
The bees dance and roll in pollen
and the cardinal at the top of the pine
sings at full throttle, fountaining.
This is the blessing for a ripe peach:
This is luck made round. Frost can nip
the blossom, kill the bee. It can drop,
a hard green useless nut. Brown fungus,
the burrowing worm that coils in rot can
blemish it and wind crush it on the ground.
Yet this peach fills my mouth with juicy sun.
This is the blessing for the first garden tomato:
Those green boxes of tasteless acid the store
sells in January, those red things with the savor
of wet chalk, they mock your fragrant name.
How fat and sweet you are weighing down my palm,
warm as the flank of a cow in the sun.
You are the savor of summer in a thin red skin.
This is the blessing for a political victory:
Although I shall not forget that things
work in increments and epicycles and sometime
leaps that half the time fall back down,
let's not relinquish dancing while the music
fits into our hips and bounces our heels.
We must never forget, pleasure is real as pain.
The blessing for the return of a favorite cat,
the blessing for love returned, for friends'
return, for money received unexpected,
the blessing for the rising of the bread,
the sun, the oppressed. I am not sentimental
about old men mumbling the Hebrew by rote
with no more feeling than one says gesundheit.
But the discipline of blessings is to taste
each moment, the bitter, the sour, the sweet
and the salty, and be glad for what does not
hurt. The art is in compressing attention
to each little and big blossom of the tree
of life, to let the tongue sing each fruit,
its savor, its aroma and its use.
Attention is love, what we must give
children, mothers, fathers, pets,
our friends, the news, the woes of others.
What we want to change we curse and then
pick up a tool. Bless whatever you can
with eyes and hands and tongue. If you
can't bless it, get ready to make it new.
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