Tag Archives: Healing

Sep29

Nu

Posted on September 29, 2019 by thejewishpoetess

by Dana Janine Diamond

I would wish you a sweet new year. I always have. The memories are gone, the future unknown. We have trees and stars and pink sunrises and pink sunsets, and lights sparkling over the river that is ever moving. There is a wheel turning somewhere in the sky, dispensing mazel. We stand under it, like we do with mistletoe, our palms outstretched, ready to catch it when it falls, ready to kiss the godliness within, ready to find love. We anticipate the embrace of love.

We carry with us a pink afghan. When I was younger, I knitted a beautiful afghan, all shades of green, from dark to light. And I carried it with me, everywhere I went, from room to room in my homes. We all have many homes. Some are waiting to be found.

So, here we are, searching. Our souls are slowly moving a flashlight out over the darkness. Our ancestors have been lighting candles for thousands of years. God knows the apple’s been in play since the beginning. Oh, but the honey. If only the sweetness would cover everything, would last. I remember dipping my toes into water and feeling refreshed, exhilarated, soothed.

This year will either make us or break us. It will take all of our strength just to lift the slice of apple with our fingers, drench it in a bit of honey, and slip it into our mouth. It will be tart and sweet simultaneously. As Jews, we never forget the bitterness; it’s always there. The joy can be elusive at times.

It feels like we’re living out the same story over and over again, peering out into the distance for happiness. It could be there, just over the horizon. It could be hidden within us, because we love. The journey could really be gratitude, and so we’ve arrived.

The challah is our reminder, be grateful. It’s full, like a soft cushion. Don’t be fooled by the harder, outer surface. I tell myself this. It’s our path to joy.

If I could raise my glass, I would wish you a sweet new year. Abundant and precious, filled to the brim with new hope.

Sep29

Truth and Forgiveness

Posted on September 29, 2017 by thejewishpoetess

Standard

by Dana Janine Diamond

This year
I am starting to forgive
my ex-husband
for all the harm
he did
of course, it is not for me
to forgive
his evil deeds
toward others,
against my child.
and what is real
is that the best chance
he gave me
to forgive
him was in
dying young.
he tortured us
for too many years
and I could click my heels
now that he’s gone.
the rest of you
if you’re still alive
I wouldn’t hold my breath
are we supposed to ignore
the vengeful, angry God
who lives on
in all of us
should we pretend
there is only love
or are we meant
to emulate angels
who never move
their feet
are we never meant
to fly
across the horizon
will we ever see
all that is below and above…
we’re not done yet
so forgiveness is not
on the menu
this year
but I will sing
anyway
because I am moving
we are singing
my lips are praying
I have some measure
of happiness
and that is significant.
just one word
to the…
hey, God,
don’t close your eyes
on us
we have traveled
a year
and we are not there
yet
wondering
are you

Sep20

Prayers for a Queen to step out of her shadow

Posted on September 20, 2017 by thejewishpoetess

Standard

By Dana Janine Diamond

Buried
all the pain
but it insists
on climbing through the mist
spectral fingers clawing
peering out of the mud
feeling their way
pulling us back
underground
it’s been more
so much more
it shouldn’t have been
at all
for all the little flowers
emanating light
sending wishes
like honey candles
in the blue, sugared night
I don’t know
if a new sun,
a new year
holds more promises
than the last
I don’t know
if faith works
I don’t know
what hope will bring
all my memories
are here with me now
maybe this is why
we mark time
so we can remember
our parents’ songs
so we can sing
with our children
maybe this year
I won’t be alone
on the floor
of the chapel outskirts
awash in angst and despair
maybe this year
the good
will outnumber
the pain
there is no telling.
All the intellect
and intricate beauty
brings minute comfort
in moments
such as these
the unfathomable
governs
but we rise
by uttering, recognizing,
naming
our blessings
praising gratitude
and abundant, unending love.

Aug9

Buffalo

Posted on August 9, 2017 by thejewishpoetess

Standard

By Dana Janine Diamond

What did I know of poetry?
White snow and dreams
empty trees below my window
sledding and screaming in the fresh, cold air
when summer came at last,
we played in the tall,
blonde weeds
next to the creek
all the houses
were built on swampland
we had lovely duck ponds
in the yard

In the years before we wanted fences
they sat out back
in their lawn chairs on the edge
of the yard, sunning themselves
my grandmother spoke only Yiddish
her grandmother understood only Greek
they talked for hours and hours
days without purpose
other than just to be

Jazz in underground clubs
and hippies from Chicago
playing folk guitar
in my polished blue living room
I waited in the wings
while Steve sang
“City of New Orleans”
my brother was alongside him
under the spotlight
I was nine
and that’s what I knew

Manicured suburbia
with movies and Niagara Falls
donuts with powder on top
and shoplifting
in shopping malls,
Buffalo,
home of the spicy Buffalo wings
we traveled in packs
venturing into basements
and haunted houses
surreptitiously playing
Spin the Bottle
with rum and coke
I don’t ever remember
liking the boys I kissed

Every summer I drove
to Fantasy Island
with my Dad
to hear Glen Campbell
sing
and see the showgirls
lift their legs
“The Sterile Honeycomb”
he wrote.
Arthur, my brother’s friend. Before
he successfully attempted suicide.
So, I knew that poets died
and that made sense to me

I read everything he wrote
and then I started writing
at fifteen, just when my brother stopped.
he moved back home from California
I thought I could not live here
because my brother left
I thought my spot was in the wings,
waiting for songwriters
to sing
I thought I could not write poetry
and survive
I knew that good poets died
and became better ones.
I write stronger now
for having died

Here, alive in the West
Or there, at that time
Snowdrifts or Western sea line
the smell and feel of summer grass
is the same
resting quietly, close to the ground
the poet is reclaimed.

Sep24

Tides Against the Shoreline

Posted on September 24, 2016 by thejewishpoetess

Standard

By Dana Janine Diamond

Katie in
The Way We Were
was the first time
I saw myself on screen
my kindred spirit
in passionate
politics and yearning
for a more fair
and just world
11, about to champion
Feminism
in a big, door to door way

Now we are fighting
a war
we never knew
would be upon us
and I long for
just
one of Hawkeye’s
wry, comforting smiles
I’m crawling through
the mud, gasping
for any pebble
or lambent bead of light
any way of carrying
on

My daughter
is writing
another book, rich
with friendships and heart
struggles and triumphs
true
love
the imagination gifts us
when memories
collide
and I’m still
so still
writing poems
just as I first did when I was 14

I dreamed of bequeathing
my daughter a heroine
an explorer
a wild water tamer
in a country of poetry
I wanted to gather in
the ocean
just for her
wade through wildflowers
in the tidal marshes
untouched
bathe in incandescence
climbing
strewn on sun-warmed rocks
basking in
southernmost sunlight
sense the salt
in an air with no loneliness

once we swam
the night away
under the moonlight
now we want
to travel the world
away from the deep dolor
of nostalgia
we played Marco Polo
but you grew silent
my heart
is too heavy
with all the myths
lost at sea
where do we belong
longing for passage
home

Sep20

Autumn’s travail

Posted on September 20, 2016 by thejewishpoetess

Standard

By Dana Janine Diamond

Hunkering down
it will be a long haul
the elections are nearly upon us
though it’s still warm
almost oppressive
when we take note
fall comes slowly
in the south
leaves just beginning
to blow away
songs are saving us
though there’s a chance
they might not
get written anymore
for the fate
of the world is upon us
the sadness takes
up all the space
until the show begins
and the comedians and singers
take the stage
if only they knew
the lives they saved
I’m leaving a trail
in the forest
with just the deer
and birds for solace
where will we go
homeless souls
when winter comes

Sep17

J’Accuse

Posted on September 17, 2016 by thejewishpoetess

Standard

By Dana Janine Diamond

Are you impotent
Or did you just
fall down on the job
why does the one thing
in your name
perpetuate so much
evil
pretty soon
looking for the good
will require
a telescope
your city of refuge
has become a country
where women and children
are subhuman
expendable in the name
of raging sickness
and power
asking us to look
the other way
because they’re ‘worse’
than us
so that makes it okay
and across our nation
we send our children
on planes and busses
tourists viewing the ancient
and the quaint
as if what they’re seeing
isn’t actually a living
Holocaust
seething and raging
underneath

While I was praying
you looked the other way
how are you going
to beg
for my forgiveness
this year
every year
how will you
do it
until the end
of time
when the dew drops
I am not going
to humble myself
before such a screw-up
maybe I’ll deign
to go another round
maybe you’ll be dead
in my heart
but if you want to
really be in this world
have a dwelling place
then you better get down
here
and clean up
your own mess

Dieu,
is this really
what you imagined

Sep16

Cart Wheels

Posted on September 16, 2016 by thejewishpoetess

Standard

By Dana Janine Diamond

We had a peaceful day
there won’t be many
this one nearly wasn’t
but it’s still mid-evening
my job now
is to report from the inside

the way we got here
the echo of…
this is my happiness
distilled to the most
benign expectations

Journey, journeying
galloping, memories
in pointillist paintings
true moments
like night stars
we can’t see them all
but we look up
and receive the impression

It turns out
humans mated with neanderthals
not sure who
got the better deal
if it was love, if God
ever really loved
us
he or she has not yet
proven their point

are we like chimps
or chumps
in the zoo
bewildering
to those on the outside

Job should have fulfilled
the prophecy
and cursed you
maybe he could have
spared us the task

We are holding the water
down
traveling, traveling
I need all the stars
turning and twirling
to deepen dusk

Sep4

To the fields we go

Posted on September 4, 2016 by thejewishpoetess

Standard

by Dana Janine Diamond

Summer has ended
the cool air lasts longer
on my morning rambles
the sun feels calm and pleasurable
even without the cover of shade
or thick foliage
I’m attuned
to the wind’s whisper
singing her inspiration
mildly mesmerized by
the yellow and white wildflowers
reaching upward,
the big sky and open space
are the keepers
of my perspective
for years I’ve waved
to the King in the fields
listened to the stories
hummed the melodies
so quietly
cried and shouted
to the tall weeds
in my heart
beseeched the nearby King
for Mercy
and now that we have
a new beginning
it occurs that perhaps
the metaphor is turning
the Queen is in the fields
beckoning, twirling
she’s been dancing since Tu B’Av
She’s calling for us to rise up
to Elul, to know our worth
this year, to measure ourselves
in love
we can sound new notes
the world has been waiting for
turn tradition on its ear
the female sheep, the lovely ewe
has horns
the best are called Jacob’s sheep
(of course)
though ewe in Hebrew really is
Rachel
so we start with naming ourselves
we begin our own song
understanding that ewe
really means journey

Jul3

These Days

Posted on July 3, 2016 by thejewishpoetess

Standard

by Dana Janine Diamond

My triumphs are small
these days
summoning an expression
of gratitude
even though sadness pervades
invades
catching the joyous
leap of a deer
in the woods
my dog taking me
farther than I intended
to go

Meditating on love
even in its absence
the loss of the best
of humanity
how to find it again
which of our children
will save the world
as they save us
every single day

Sweet noble knight
found his fair rose
wrote in the language
of love
the largesse of a soul
and spirit
too great to contain
in letters
wandering without borders
wondering without boundaries

Rising up
from all of history
like an exquisite
ceramic decantur
in the dirt of the dig
filling us to the brim
making us more
from the beginning and end

of time
’til this moment

J’accuse
it’s up to us now
to give voice
refrain from averting
our gaze
just a little longer
the ache is too deep
to contemplate

but morning
is the feast
of words, of a
full day of promise
the trick
is to keep traveling
the truth
is to keep
remembering

Sunlight sees us
waking through our day
speaking and writing
and finally believing
loving morning miracles

For Elie, part 1