December 4, 2018
Dear Subscriber:
Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of
view. The theme for this week is Hanukkah, which began at sundown on December 2nd
and will end at sundown on December 10th.
I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com
.
A Hanukkah poem about various functions of the concept
of God:
Before you light the candles, say
the blessing.
One needs a giver for the gift of
light:
Not to answer prayer or make
things right;
Not to reward the good or punish
sinning;
Instead, to make heart-sense of
mystery,
Enduring icon of infinity.
Good God! A portrait of infinity?
An icon we’re interminably
blessing?
But our being is a mystery.
Reason has no origin for light.
If the love of God can lessen
sinning,
Eradicating wrong, increasing
right,
Let God be the champion of right,
Knowing we can’t know infinity,
Engaged in our own struggle
against sinning,
Needing someone to receive our
blessing,
Noumenon derived from mystery,
A causeless cause of Being, love,
and light.
Sing of an imagined source of
light,
Embodiment of all that’s good and
right,
The portrait hung upon the mystery,
Here to humanize infinity.
As you recite the time-perfected
blessing,
Now sing of love, that moves the
heart from sinning.
Do we need God to keep ourselves
from sinning,
Endowed as we are with reason’s
natural light?
Let yourself be tempted by the
blessing,
Instinctive impetus for doing
right.
Zeal’s too ravenous for finity,
As reason’s boundary line is
mystery.
Break like a wave across that
mystery!
Each soul must break, must break
upon its sinning,
Then draw back into infinity,
Heart ravaged by a loving source
of light.
Everything that helps one do
what’s right,
Like faith, like wisdom, ritual
prayer and blessing,
Lights one’s inner darkness. Sing
the blessing,
Ever sinning, ever doing right,
Never far from infinite mystery.
© by Nicholas Gordon
If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or
share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my
site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/befor5.html.
For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html
.
This week’s theme: Hanukkah
12/4: Before You Light the Candles, Say the Blessing
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