Isaac Mozeson's Page

A Prayer

Dear Lord,
Help me always to feel
Like the blind, to see
Like the deaf, to hear
Like the mute, and to love
Like the dying.

Morning Nuptials

Under this striped wool canopy
I am engaged eternally
To Thee. I circle seven times
And bind myself
To Thy name. I am wed
With the finger rings
That signal Thee. My Lord,
Pass the cup of prayer
To my lips, to sing my morning nuptial song.

SESTINA: KIDDUSH HaLEVANA - 1972 Isaac Mozeson

I
Who there rises from the wilderness at night,
Longing for her beloved in secret,
Whispering the wind's music?
She is the moon who flees the rays
Of day and down descends behind the mountain
And there pretends the crown she wore before creation.

II

The sun has baked the nations since creation.
His sword-steel beams have naked raked the night
Of dreams with blades that gleam of dry bones, a mountain.
The fountains of the moon lie veiled in secret;
Her crescent harps night's notions in her rays
And sways the oceans with her music.

III

Wild wolves and madmen hear her music,
Lillies among the thorns of creation,
Lillies torn in the horned rays
Of day that breathe away the night
And melt in morning's light the secret
Clouds that flee to the clefts of the mountain.


IV

Lift up thine eyes to the clefts of the mountain,
Do you see her dance, do you hear her music
That glissades down the slope like goats in secret?
Look not upon her as the darkling of creation,
That the sun has tanned her, banned her to night.
Where feedest thy flock in the noon rays?

v

But the end of days shall redeem her rays,
The word rings true from the mountain;
Who rolls in day and brings on night
Shall open all ears to the music,
And whose every dawn spawns new creation
Shall pry the eyes of all eyes to the secret.

VI

A splinter spared from fire in secret
Alights like a song in the dawn's rays,
A song of the steps -- taken back to creation --
To the light primeval, before vale or mountain;
Like the young hart is my beloved's music,
As the fawn of deer dancing in night.

VII

Behold she stands beyond the wall of night, her secret
Music upon the windows and lattice plays. Let flare the rays
Of revelation from every mountain declare the new moon's creation.




After the Six Mill-
Ennia, we ready
Home and candles
As sunset and the Sabbath nears.