with thanks to Joi Sharp
There’s a lovely Hasidic story of a rabbi who always told his people that if they studied the Torah, it would put Scripture on their hearts. One of them asked, “Why on our hearts, and not in them?” The rabbi answered, “Only God can put Scripture inside. But reading sacred text can put it on your heart, and then when your hearts break, the holy words will fall inside.
―Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
Again today I rest my hand above my heart
and feel how naturally the body softens,
how simple it is in this moment to forgive
myself for thinking I should be anything
but what I am. Hello air that fills
this body. Hello life that pulses through.
Hello mystery of gentling. Hello self
who would resist. I rest my hand
above my heart and think of how
for many years my teacher laid
her teachings exactly there—
placed them right where my hand is now
so that when my heart broke,
the teachings fell in, just as the Rabbi
once said they would.
I think of how it saved me, this falling in,
how in that terrible breaking moment,
what had been understood only by the head
became blood, became breath,
became every step, every unstep,
became nerve, became bone,
became true.
I rest my hand above my heart
and feel how this, too, is the tenderest of teachings—
to say yes to the body, to ask nothing of it,
to feel in the palm the miracle of heart beat,
and fall in, fall all the way in.
Wow. I love Anne Lamott, and read Plan B many years ago, so I had forgotten that story. And you have illustrated it with your poem so beautifully. Another one for the wall!
I was astonished when I heard that story about the Rabbi because it felt sooooo true. I almost wept in recognition of it!
lovely, lovely lovely…. my heart quakes
lovingly ~ Laegan
PS. I watched the YouTube clip you recommended in the Emerging Form newsletter today, Paterson Poems: The Line 10/10 + The Japanese Poet ~~~~~ ahhhhhhhhhhh, such a gift, thank you dearrosemerry.
I lived for three years in Japan, it was truly magical, the people have so much reverence for the artistic life and thought.
isn’t it just magic?? And I have not been to Japan yet, but I have so much reverence for their reverence!
Papa Cohen’s “crack by which the light gets in.”
amen
Rosemerry, this is one of the finest of the many fine poems you’ve been posting over the past several weeks. It’s Rilkean in the best sense, different in texture from some of your more Rumiesque poems. Don’t ask me what I mean by that distinction because I don’t know! All I know is that you are swimming in very deep waters and doing it beautifully. Your recent work brings to mind Stan Rice, from his “Psalm 212” in his posthumous final book:
…I was lost
and sang my broken-down songs in the hell of the hour.
Then in my heart moved an oar,
And I was found by a breeze from a door in the sea of forms
And was rowed to the cherry trees on the shore.
Selah. Selah.
I think I know just what you mean! Rumi (at least the poems that have been translated and passed around) tend toward revelation.
ooops … pressed send too soon. And Rilke’s poems tend to befriend the dark. Maybe that is part of what you meant??? And I love this poem you quote … I had not heard before of Stan Rice, but this is wonderful.