Without Ceasing
The wash of dawn across the sky
reveals your signature.
Cicadas drone your praise
through the honey-slow afternoon.
The angular windmills on the ridge
recite your name with every turn.
And I, who can barely focus on breath
without drifting into story:
what can I say to you,
author of wisteria and sorrel,
you who shaped these soft hills
with glaciers’ slow passage?
You fashioned me as a gong:
your presence reverberates.
Help me to open my lips
that I may sing your praise.
Rachel Barenblat was ordained as a rabbi in January of 2011, on the same day that her book 70 Faces — a collection of poems arising out of conversation with Torah — was published by Phoenicia Publishing. She holds an MFA from Bennington and is author of four previous chapbooks of poetry. Since 2003 she has blogged as the Velveteen Rabbi; she lives in western Massachusetts with her husband and their son, and serves Congregation Beth Israel as their rabbi.
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Qarrtsiluni (2005-2013) was a groundbreaking online literary magazine, one of the first to fully exploit blog software. Though we never quite realized our dream of creating a print-on-demand option for each issue, being online does mean that our back issues remain accessible indefinitely, so there's that. And we published some damn fine stuff — check it out.
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Thanks, Fiona and Kaspalita, for choosing this poem! I’m honored to be in this fine company.
How perfectly beautiful. I loved the poem the moment I read “without ceasing” — certainly to pray, to meditate, to be mindful, without ceasing, is an imperative. Thank you for this —
(o)
Beautiful, Rachel. A modern psalm.
Beautiful, Rachel, the poem and your reading. How I love “author of wisteria and sorrel!”
Dear
Rabbi Rachael,
i thank you mother and Rabbi Rachael for your inspiration over my life.
And i also thank our G-d on how he blessed you with speedy recovery and i also congratulate you on your second Rabbinical ordination and i answered Amein for the blessings which you gave me.