Skin blistered, ignorance bliss
Throat parched, humor dry
Eyes tearing, heart torn
Feet dragging, mind drugged
Lips chapped, nerves charred
Reach out with bloodied hands
For that self-aggrandized image
Blown-up like a surveillance shot
Only to realize that it’s a mirage
Fading with every step taken closer
To nothing dressed in cellophane
(Things blown-up always seem to explode)
Read the fading sign in neon diner letters:
Wel ome to the Wilder es & Des rt
(“Don’t worry,” they tell you. “Letters can always be replaced.”)
The Wilderness, where we convince ourselves
That everything in life is a wildflower and
Gardeners don’t exist at all and neither do gardens,
Where wildfires are all the rage and we love
Every sizzling lick its forked tongue bestows, every
Flaming cackle of its burning dispassion. Wild-
Fire: the coldest, most heartless fire known to fuel,
Colder yet for it really should be hot, warm
Embracing.
The Desert, where when we look at a body we
Don’t see a soul, look at a challenge and not
See a solution, listen politely to a question and
Not hear a plea, touch purity and still not feel
Innocence
Here we are, after Eden & Genesis, after
Egypt & Exodus, even after Mt. Sinai and
What Greek and Latin translate as Leviticus
But what Hebrew knows as coming close,
When He called to Moshe…
After all we’ve gone through, still here we are
In the Wilderness, the Desert, wild, deserted
Alone.
How to breathe in an asphyxiated world?
How to touch life in a place that’s dead?
How to remain focused in a wilderness?
Take a census of the
Entire congregation of
The Children of Israel
Come to our census
(And consensus):
Take the sum, the sum of the
Hearts
Count each individual, the quantity
And they shall become the quality
Counting diamonds:
Each one of us a priceless diamond, a clear soul,
Counted because each one of us counts, matters most,
And when we realize we are diamonds, even the thickest
Blackest rough cannot hide our glimmer, glitter, radiance
Brilliance –
Even the most depressing wilderness cannot depress us
We may be a diamond in the rough, a body in a soul
But when the diamond is realized, polished
Even the rough begins to shine
We have opened another book, in the desert,
The Talmud calls it the book of “counting”
(You don’t want to cook these books, believe
Me, but you may want to gobble them up)
An account book, where every detail is tallied
For every detail, every individual helps us get
From where we are to where we are going to be.
Up ahead in the not-so-distance read the sign in vibrant
Holy letters –
Welcome to the Promised Land
Mendel Jacobson is a writer, poet and journalist living in Brooklyn. His weekly poetry can be seen at jakeyology.blogspot.com
The words of this author reflect his/her own opinions and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Orthodox Union.