A poem for #blogElul 21: Change

CHANGE (ELUL 21)


The only constant
except for your loneliness.
You've always needed someone
to talk with, to show you
your own reflection.
(It is not good for God
to be alone.) But you're
mercurial. You've changed
masks: from stern
to sweet and back again,
old white-haired man
above the highest heavens
to the friend I want to hug
and never let go. But
you're always more than.
Sometimes we call you
king, sometimes mother,
healer, lover -- you're
whatever we yearn for.
I yearn for you. And
whatever I think you are
you've already left behind.

One of my favorite understandings of the cosmogony, the way the universe came to be, is the kabbalistic teaching that when nothing existed but God, God was lonely. God brought creation into being so that God might have someone with whom to be in relationship.

I'm participating again this year in #blogElul, an internet-wide carnival of themed posts aimed at waking the heart and soul before the Days of Awe. (Organized by Ima Bima.) You can read last year's and this year's #blogElul posts via the Elul tag; last year's posts are also available, lightly revised, in the print chapbook Elul Reflections.