"there stands an ancient covenant"

Today’s letter shares a poem, visual art that speaks to it & a writing/creativity prompt.

by Leah Goldberg

translated by Ramah Commanday

I

II

I have no bitter words

to release my delusions––

My images are clear as stained-glass windows;

Through them

one can see

How light in the sky is changing,

and how my love fell

like a dead bird

III

It is simple:

IV

And they came to me,

commanded me to sing.

and they said: We are words,

I surrendered;

I sang them.

And yet there was a bridge between them

with lamps on the other side.

The man did not approach,

so I said he never came.

V

The hours of humiliation,

hours of grandeur

hours of pain;

They are not necessary,

For there stands an ancient covenant

between myself and the silence—

And there is a road to buried dreams

from a place beyond words.

from Light on the Rim of a Cloud: Fourteen Poems by Leah Goldberg. Translated and illustrated by Ramah Commanday. San Francisco, CA: Didymus Press, 1972

Art: Rings, Iran, 9th century, public domain image

Dear Friends,

“There is a road to buried dreams / from a place beyond worlds,” Goldberg writes.

In these outrageous times, we must envision and describe the alternative worlds we want.

1. What dreams have you buried?
   Where is the road to them, and how does it wind?
   When you dream for yourself, what are your strongest images?
   When you dream for all of us, what do you see?
   

2. Goldberg writes, “My life is engraved on my poems / as rings show the age of a tree, / as my years are the wrinkles of my forehead”

   Where is your life engraved? How do you feel about the process of aging right now? How do you carry the accumulation of rings (tree rings, facial lines, finger rings, phone rings, etc.)?