Prayer from a Third Floor Apartment

Prayer from a Third Floor Apartment (poem): Jerusalem at dawn
Photo: Chana Ganz

Like fire in my veins
and the aching pulse of the
farthest heart close to me
Like rapidly ascending bubbles
of excited water in
my chest, not broad
enough to know where to put them

Like a tension in my throat and
an echoed call from a
mountain-top between my eyes

Is G-d’s love the love of man?
Is the heart of man just another
broken vessel,
rocked, to and from, in the tides of eternity?

From which thoughts come the
jolt
to settle a sleepless mind
and rouse a sleeping one?

and if a poem is a question,
do we have the answer?

Doubts will settle into stone
if not kept shaken

Certainty flows like water, falls
like rain
If only the cup could be kept still

Fire was first, the house was
last,
but first in thought.

May your fire be mine,
and mine, yours
Eternity is just a number
and before One, what do you count?

Place your answer on my tongue,
and open my lips,
that my mouth may declare your praise.

May my teeth be the
bricks of your walls

My tongue the bed of
your dreams

My lips the fence of
your roof
and my smile the rays
of your glory

My breath the heat for
winter,
my words the candles in
your windows,
at your doorpost

And I shall dwell in your House
for the length of
my days,
and the glow
glimpse
flash
dawn of tomorrow

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