“Songs of Zion” weekly posts are meant to provide a Jewish safe space. Please take any arguments outside.
Purim is coming (3/24-25) so please accept this reminder to get your break-fasts, goody bags (shlach manot), costumes, Megillah readings and festive meals lined up.
Also coming up is the anniversary of the death of our former poet laureate WS Merwin, March 15, 2019. Coincidentally I happened upon a poem of his called “Esther.” I do see some parallels to the biblical heroine in the verse, but I do not know if the poem has another background. I would be pleased for readers here to share any reactions to the poem or the idea of whether it might refer to Queen Esther or another Esther, as well as thoughts as to what might be meant by “old female word from the corner.”
“Esther”
Tomorrow they will come for you
old female word from the corner
lucidity
motionless in the dark
they will take you out to
be bared elsewhere
opened before it is May
there is no one else here
the door wide to the blinding
spring
the wind one of the family
like a cold hen
mute about the kitchen
the rest away busy the shirts waiting for the iron
the calendar ticking
tomorrow
the animals will keep away
we do not believe in
happening
the sunlight will always lie there
even tonight even tomorrow night
it was always there
but you go back to another time
it is said
as though there is one
If tomorrow is really
not today
how can one believe in anything.
December 1968
And now it’s making me think of the civil rights hymn “A Change is Gonna Come.” If not now, when?
And now for a few of my Merwin favorites:
“The Room”
I think all this is somewhere
in myself
the cold room unlit before
dawn
containing a stillness such as attends death
and from a corner the sounds of a small bird trying
from time to time to fly a few beats in the dark
you would say it was dying it is
immortal
“In Stony Country”
Somewhere else than these bare uplands dig wells,
Expect flowers, listen to sheep bells.
Wind; no welcome; and nowhere else
Pillows like these stones for dreaming of angels.
So many of Merwin’s poems are biblically resonant. Merwin’s father was a Presbyterian minister. Something I didn’t learn from my teacher who knew Merwin, but not in the biblical sense, as far as I know. She was a bit coy. She almost landed him, according to her, but a nurse turned up where they were (Scotland?) and lured him away somehow with a Shandy. Alas. Before or after Dido, I don’t recall. My prof had words about her too. Merwin was a peace activist, eco-conservator, and into Buddhist thought. He began writing hymns as a child and never stopped, it seems to me.
"For the Anniversary of My Death”
Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star
Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what
Usually last week’s Parsha (Vayakel) and this week’s (Pekudei) are read together. But this year is a pregnant year—a leap year—with two months of Adar and so there are enough weeks for each Parsha to have its own week. Last week the Parsha included the prohibition against making a fire. The Samaritans take this literally and sit in their cold homes eating cold food. The Talmudic tradition allows for work-arounds and it is traditional to use one of these methods to eat or drink something hot on the second meal of the Sabbath in order to celebrate following the rabbinical tradition. The story goes that one of the Caesar’s and one of the famous rabbis were conferring about some matter. Caesar claimed to be more powerful than Moses on the grounds of “better a live dog than a dead lion.” The rabbi said that Moses was more powerful and to prove it told Caesar to forbid the community to light any fire for three days — and it happened to be one of those three-day Jewish holidays coming up where kindling a fire would be prohibited. Caesar duly issued the command only to soon be disappointed to find smoke coming out of one of his general’s homes. Turns out one of his generals was sick and needed a fire. But in the story the Jewish homes all remained without fire — because they were obeying the command received from Moses. Thus the dead lion was greater than the live dog. My problem with this story is what about the work arounds? Jews did use fire to keep themselves and food warm. Today for food and drink it’s using an electric samovar or a warming tray, or a pre-set oven. For heat, setting up the radiators or a thermostat in advance. Some people make prior arrangements with gentiles to stoke fires (or flip light switches) for communal spaces or emergencies. I am hoping one of our readers has the knowledge of how Sabbath-observers kept themselves and their food warm back in Caesar days—some way that didn’t involve raising smoke, it would seem. But then there is the story of the rabbi who went missing on Yom Kippur being found lighting a fire for an old or sick person who needed a fire to stay alive, for preserving life takes precedence over the Sabbath. Yet another problem with the Caesar & the Rabbi story I heard last week, unless no one was sick and in need of a fire on that three-day holiday long ago. And may we all be healthy — spring fevers aside.