A Talmud Angel

[image from Flickr.com]

"Every blade of grass has its Angel
that bends over it and whispers....
'grow,grow'."
The Talmud

[I penned this poem for a dear friend who is walking through the kind of days where the spirit grows faint at the prospect of putting one foot in front of the other. Days when life is pain and the heart grows weary. I post it here to encourage any of you who are experiencing dark days right now. In the midst of the fuss and frenzy of the holidays,  it can sometimes look like most people have privileged and easy and happy lives,(they don't; no one is immune from trouble and sadness). All the hoopla can make one's own circumstances seem harder to bear. This is to remind us all that the new year will dawn, and spring will come again. Flowers will bloom, sunshine will bless us all, and a happier day will dawn for one and all. That is my wish for 2011. Let us all continue to  Live In Hope!]

How do you
keep hope alive
in times when
the March wind blows
and hoarfrost forms
around the edges
of your heart?
Times when
the winter wolf
stalks your footsteps
and you doubt the sun
will ever warm
your cheeks again?


Those are the days
when my eyes
seek the first light
of morning,
receiving each day
as a new beginning
with the possibility
of new perceptions;
days when I remember
there is a
larger landscape
than the one we see;
when I know,
if I look out through
my small window,
I may only see gray clouds
over the city.
Yet if I enlarge
that window
and my vision,
I can see the whole sky,
a patch of blue
just breaking
on the horizon.


In those times
when all around me
seems to be
chaotic and dissembling,
I have come
to understand
the universe is
simply rearranging,
through times of transition,
and on the other side
there may be
something wonderful
waiting that
I can't yet see.


I remember
that every cell and seed
in the universe
has one purpose:
to grow.


Even when living
feels too hard,
I still believe in life.
It is the underlying principle
of the universe.
In the midst of war,
political imprisonment, torture
and the worst that humankind
can do to one another,
a human’s instinct
is solely to survive,
to live long enough
to arrive at
a better day.


When your soul is
sorrowing and defeated,
and resists putting
one tired foot
in front of the other,
what I see is
the hugeness
of your spirit
that survived
the trenches
of childhood,
and the heartbreak
of lost love,
to get to this place
where you feel
you are
coming up
empty.


With all of my belief,
in you, in life
and in tomorrow,
(I who have walked
through similar
barren wastelands),
until you can
believe, again,
yourself,
let me be the
Talmud angel
who bends over the
solitary blade of grass
that is your life,
and whispers to it:
“Grow! Grow!”