The Children of Schneur Zalman of Ladi
Time sings when played
upon the instrument
of memory.
I invoke the melody
of my ancestor
across a century:
His thoughts; my hands.
His songs; my images.
His passion; my poetry.
I write these lines;
he speaks between them.
One of his children listens.
Menachem Shlomo
Kahana Shapira, ben Schneur Zalman (me)
Saul Spiro, 11/1985
The Ocean
for my motherLooking at the dry, sere
wheat stubble
bearding the rolling hills
around my house
I still think frequently about the ocean.
I can smell it in my
mind,
sense its rhythm and energy,
its strength even at rest--
playful, exciting,
Showing its feelings
and inviting us
to join the game.
Storms wrinkle the
same surface of joy--
Secrets and treasures,
Ageless youth,
reminding us of first steps
upon its shore,
Singing different songs
in its wind
than those landlocked
melodies of later cities
of our lives.
How can feet upon the
solid earth
ever regain their magic
amniotic balance
And walk the water path
again?
Sea gulls occasionally
visit in-land.
Tides surge in my ears.
The ocean’s face
waves a smile
eternally
Saul Spiro, 09/1988
For my Brother, Herzl
He is like a guitar falling
down a mountain path
bouncing notes and tunes
from the rocks and trees
it strikes along the way.
A teenage rainbow--
Coasting off into an amalgam
of vesticular basalt,
with the history of our race
peeking from every crevice,
and the form re-sculpting
the meaning of our Past.
I am nothing next to my brother.
He can talk with the gods
and shame the mere carriers
of His Tablets.
I cry at the memory of his
words careening off
the sides of the canyons
of my life,
And I listen to the mellow
instrument falling
through my night----
His guitar shell
echoing
echoing.
Saul Spiro, 10/1989
For my Sister, Rena
She is the lyre
of Orpheus
charming her way
in and out of the Hell
of our yearly seasons.
We can taste our bitter sweet
existence
upon the lips of her
smile,
and feel it is better
than it is.
We can see the world
through her Anne Frank
eyes,
and the bars are
blurred.
For she is the dew
that rocks call
tears.
and we are renewed
even when we
are not new.
She is my sister,
the anima of my animus
who helped break
the locked barn
of my soul---
Of all our leaden
souls.
Saul Spiro, 10/1989
Anne Frank Everyone's Sister
Eating Pavlova
by D. M. Thomas
Other Constellations
The light of some stars
reaches us long after
they have died,
leaving us gratified
and mystified by our
shortsightedness,
tho some planets
are born under cloudy
skies which never clear,
so they never even
know the light of stars
others hold so dear.
But there are some
constellations not nearly
so far apart
as they appear ------
mere pinholes in the
ceilings of the bedrooms
of our lives,
giving comfort as we
fall asleep, even unto
the night when time
runs off the rails of the farrago
of our line.
Families are too often like the constellations we
know,
but that is not true of ours,
which joins the points
of its stars
like the fingers of hands
touching us with its design,
so that our stories ignite
into unforgotten myths
reflecting light
from the sightless moons
we (all-too-soon) become,
as ancestors in the tribal sky
-------which is our own.
Saul Spiro, 12/1995
A Father's Blessing
I wrote lines in a poem some years ago,
after my father died,
expressing my regret at his having left
in alzheimered silence
without having pronounced
a final blessing.
In fact, my father’s blessing
stroked the secular soul of my being
every day of my life,
and I heard his non-judgmental voice
inspiring me with a sense
of magical potential,
which otherwise would have existed
only in the distant abracadabra
of the books I read incessantly,
but with little hope for such fulfillment
in myself.
I flourished beneath the canopy
of his grace,
accomplishing many of my dreams
because of a father whose acceptance
and blessing hung like a gilded canopy
over the abbreviated potential I felt
during most of my early years.
His subtle smile inspired an Everest of irony
in my life.
I heard his unspoken words:
“They are idiots.”
“Do what you are.”
“It is good.”
“I did, and so can you.”
Rarely a word,
A smile and a blessing every day
of my life.
Saul Spiro, 03/2001
Parental Lessons
My father taught me, quietly:
that knowledge was to be approached
in the silent night of our souls,
and guided by the music of intuition;
that books were to be absorbed
in the weightless libraries
upon our backs,
and lit by the moonlight of inner despair.
My mother taught me, emotionally:
that people counted,
and feelings were natural------
even in a world of loneliness,
which came alive when you kissed
its frowning forehead
until the eyes below
shed tears of happiness,
and touched fingers to their despair.
How could I miss?