Archive for December, 2008

Night Nine

Why are you telling me a story
and why on the ninth night? I asked.

You thought there were eight nights,
This year you will light for nine.
You assumed ten energies
there are eleven.
You learned four ways of reading —
there are five
– four levels of the soul
there’s a fifth.

The kind you live for, he said –
everything that issues from the mouth of God

– the kind you can’t do without.

Night Eight********

I made a deal, the angel said to me,
If I lived, I’d give my life over to God.

And if you would have died?

I’d have given my life over to God,
He said.

You sit and stare,
Said the angel.

The light from the candles
is the or ha-ganuz
the hidden light
stored away for the future –

Eight Angels Came to Me On Eight Nights
Each one told a story******

On the sixth night,
I asked him –
What’s the miracle?

Grateful, said the angel
– the miracle is gratitude
find that and you won’t need anything.

You’ll breathe into the souls of your feet
and live as long as you want to.

On the fifth night
Rebbe Nachman appeared as an angel
I fashioned my menorah entirely out of defects, he said.

I made the menorah out of flaws.
Now I will begin its repair.

Anyone who finds a flaw –
finds his own flaw.

I went into exile
with spice merchants
smelling sweet all the way down,

when I saw my brothers –
I blessed them.
I said, it was not you who sent me here

but God.
How do you know? they asked,
I smelled it, I said,

and they thought
I was
crazy,

– Joseph.

Eight Angels Came to Me On Eight Nights
Each one told a story***

On the third night
an angel came to me in the form of a Chasid
he opened with
Darkness IS Light –

God separated the light from darkness
called light day
and the darkness night
And it was evening and it was morning
day one.

In the beginning, darkness and light one
a single seamless sourced good
then the challenge
subdue the dark
illumine the good
– the fearful dialectic.

Temple menorah lit by day to illumine the night
Hanukkah menorah
lit by night to reclaim dark
light from darkness itself
the source of light.

Light from the luminous essence of darkness –
this the Hanukkah light.

The Temple lights seven
Hanukkah eight
seven the spiritual cycle
the seven sefirot emanated from God
all natural cycles given in seven.

Eight –
surrounding the seven
the extra measure laid around nature
the eighth lamp
light from darkness itself
darkness as an aspect of light.

Now stare into a candle
see the flame
see the darkness around the wick
see the dark candle

it’s all light
all over.

Eight Angels Came to Me On Eight Nights
Each one told a story**

The second night
the Chernobler Rebbe came
dressed as an angel in Japanese embroidered silk.

Are you a man or a lady? I asked him –
there are so many more possibilities
said the Chernobler laughing.

The Chernobler Rebbe pushed on,
oil is wisdom
poured over the head
of the Priest King Messiah
overflowing like precious oil on the head
running down the beard of Aaron.
The pure finely-beaten, most excellent of the olive oil –
the olive that releases its finest product when pressed.

Smell this, said the Chernobler Rebbe,
pressing his wrist to my nose
another quality of oil
the capacity to absorb.
I smelled yasmina
jasmine,

When I make perfume the scent is absorbed into the oil –
then distilled. Wisdom
is absorbed from the world this way
– both its beauty and its contaminants.

Now, said the Chernobler Rebbe,
one small vial of pure oil
when fired up lights everything.
Wisdom when it is tended burns pure
burns long burns sure.

Begin now.

Eight Angels came to me
on eight nights
each one told a story.

On the first night*

We call it
festival of lights,

the kind of light
that burns.

I dreamed a dream –
we were walking through a field
then we were alone in a small valley
an emek,

the story opened to me like a flower
a field of stories
opening.

I’ll tell it to you again if you like –
the whole story,

Joseph.