Poetry Prompt Journey: Liberation Inspiration

Using the Life Spiral as a Guide Through Narrow Passages

Greetings Poets and Creators,

Here we are in the straits…the narrow places…can you feel it?

I believe that consideration of the Passover experience has much to offer everyone—from any walk of life.

Passover is eight days long in diaspora. The first two days are festival days, then we have the middle days, and then the last two days are festival days.

As we find ourselves here in the middle days, I wanted to offer a Prompt Journey using liberation as our inspiration.

I am making this Prompt Journey available to all subscribers.

I also want to offer my humblest and most heartfelt apologies to all of you. My health has been poor, and my grief and fear over the state of the world has been heavy. I have no doubt that many of you have also been feeling this.

These are not excuses, there is no excuse.

I have been near-incapacitated at points. I just spent about six weeks doing a very deep dive via the healthcare system—lots of doctors and a battery of tests in hopes of receiving more answers regarding my health.

Turns out I do indeed have narcolepsy, as evidenced by previous tests in previous years…that’s about all I learned…which is to say, I didn’t learn anything, but I did receive confirmation, which is not nothing when you struggle with imposter syndrome and self-blame/shame…

I don’t know what I was expecting…but I was cautiously optimistic for some new information…some new possibilities for how to proceed…how to feel…how to do…even a little bit better.

And I get it: things could be SO much worse for me, and I really am quite healthy in many ways, and I am extremely grateful for that.

I am also struggling with some physical injuries and am diagnosed with CPTSD and as being in a decades-long burnout. I have struggled to find ways to recover.

Please know I have done deep (“deep” is an understatement) research in these areas…

I am not mentioning any of this for any reason except to apologize for the long gap in posting (on that same note, if you have been awaiting a personal reply to an email or otherwise, this is why you haven’t heard back and I deeply apologize to you) and try to explain it somewhat (again, it does not excuse it).

I am doing my best and my best flippin’ SUUUUUCKS right now. All I can do is apologize…

I am able to accomplish very little in a day beyond the bare minimum of self-care.

But I did accomplish preparing this Prompt Journey and I am very happy to share it with you!

Thank you for showing me so much grace…more than I deserve. Thank you for your forgiveness and understanding.

May there be peace and liberation for all people who want peace and liberation for all people. May the murder and torture of innocents cease. Enough. Enough. Enough hate. Enough. May there be liberation. May there be peace.

Onward to the Prompt Journey.

I encourage you to take in the following poems from:

Marge Piercy
Tuvia Ruebner Z”L
Stacey Zisook Robinson Z”L

And the music in the Prompt Journey is from:
Kitka Women's Vocal Ensemble

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The Seder's Order
By Marge Piercy

The songs we join in
are beeswax candles
burning with no smoke
a clean fire licking at the evening

our voices small flames quivering.
The songs string us like beads
on the hour. The ritual is
its own melody that leads us

where we have gone before
and hope to go again, the comfort
of year after year. Order:
we must touch each base

of the haggadah as we pass,
blessing, handwashing,
dipping this and that. Voices
half harmonize on the brukhahs.

Dear faces like a multitude
of moons hang over the table
and the truest brief blessing:
affection and peace that we make.

***

Amen
By Tuvia Ruebner Z”L
Translated from Hebrew by Rachel Tzvia Back

The betrayer who is betrayed.
The deceiver deceived.
Away! Away!
What away?
Away to where
in the yellow air?
To the meadow that was?
To the lambs just birthed?
To the falling birds?
In our standing up, though a little bent—dayenu.
With our eyes seeing though blurred—dayenu.
With our ears almost hearing—dayenu.
Upon our lying down and our rising—dayenu.
On our remembering our beloved’s name—dayenu.
On our kneeling down—dayenu.
By the skin of our teeth—dayenu.
In our heart that expands and contracts—dayenu.
In our worried heart, fearful and afraid—dayenu.
Amen.

***

Leaving Egypt
By Stacey Zisook Robinson Z”L

I carry Egypt with me
in a drawstring pocket
that I keep close at my side,
so that I can feel the nestled weight
of its sand and stone
and endless servitude.
Sometimes i run my thumb
along its gathered edge,
wondering if I should -
if maybe I could -
open that pocket,
just for a minute,
quick-like and easy,
so that I might feel
those sharp-edged stones,
sun-warmed and ancient
and well-trodden
by Pharaohs and asps.

But I don't. I think the
stones might cut me,
or perhaps spill out:
All that sand and stone
that hangs so heavy at my waist,
that bows me just a bit
and fits against me just so,
it might scatter in a graceful arc
as I imagine river once did,
to escape the narrow banks
that bound it
and bent it,
shedding its great crocodile tears
of feast and famine
in a sudden burst of freedom.

And just like that,
Egypt would lie strewn about,
scattered by my stumbling feet
in some trackless wilderness
that has been trampled
by the feet of a thousand generations since.
And by the time I stop
to do the math of
all those feet
and all that wilderness,
there would be nothing
left of Egypt,
and my drawstring pocket
would be empty.

***

May your ensuing creations bring you liberation and peace and may this liberation and peace vibrate out to touch others.

***