William West, “Israelites Passing through the Wilderness”
Spiritual Sunday
Rabbi Rachel Barenblat in the wonderfully named Velveteen Rabbi blog alerts me to this poem by Stanley Kunitz as we look ahead to Yom Kippur (Tuesday and Wednesday).
Kunitz, who lived to be 100, looks back at his life and those lives that have intersected with his and wonders whether there has been any continuity. Throughout it, he detects “some principle of being” “from which I struggle not to stray.”
Also looking back at his “feast of losses” and at “the manic dust of my friends,/ those who fell along the way,” he wonders how his heart has ever been able to be reconciled. Yet again, rather than being overwhelmed, he speaks of his determination to move forward:
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
Turning to the Bible for imagery, Kunitz describes himself as a scattered tribe. Like the Israelites in the desert, however, he finds assurance in the voice that comes out of the guiding cloud (Exodus 13:21):
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Yom Kippur is a day to focus on our layered lives and not simply on the wreckage that presents itself to us on first glance. If we do so, we will be able to step confidently into the future, even if we don’t understand the new transformations we are undergoing.
The Layers
By Stanley Kunitz
I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned campsites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.