…AND SOMETIMES Y

I am the first letter
In the Holy Hebrew
Secret name of God.

In that ancient language,
I look like
A tongue of flame –

The kind that hovers
Over someone’s head
Sometimes in paintings

Of the people
Some call “saints”.
In English,

I can be a consonant
Or vowel. But
Vowels in Hebrew

Are not written down –
One has to breathe them out,
For they are a word’s soul.

Consonants provide a shape,
Define the limits,
But you can’t speak out loud

Till the Spirit moves you.
In practice, I am
As much consonant as vowel,

Shaping the fire that
Springs from my own
Spark, and then

Descending like
Hands into wet clay
As it spins. Open

Your arms to the sky
And feel my energy
Come down, infusing
Everything
With both its start
And ending.

The question “Why”
Contains me as
Both breath, and answer.


-- © 2011 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

WINTER INSIGHT

A fly on the lip of the glass,
A drink that the room has turned cold;
There’s some contradiction in this.
This season indoors breaks the mold.

You take an intoxicant sip
Of brew grown belatedly strong.
You let the nip soothe your cold throat
And find your voice, but not for long.

The drunken fly’s small life expires.
The flush in your skin will not last.
You sing about seasonal fires
And stay inside, dreaming the past.

The summer to come is far off;
The previous one, just a blur.
Your song terminates in a cough,
And you feel worse off than you were.

You know no other moment will provide
Relief that – though you can’t reach it – you crave.
It’s more than a dark lull in the year’s ride.
This quick flash of the wings is all we have.


-- © 2011 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )