B'resheit (In the Beginning)
For the Dedication of Temple Sinai's New Chapel, October 1, 2010, Oakland, California
In the beginning
we read the words
“in the beginning”
and it was all good.
Before light, darkness,
before land, seas
before all Beings, a void.
then stars breaking
light across the planet,
stars and a great sun,
a splendid moon.
In the beginning,
a place of perfect
balance, a garden
of perfect sustenance
with all good in it.
A giraffe and a lion,
a palm for giving oil,
a palm for giving dates,
a palm for shelter.
In the beginning,
a home of balance,
a place of sanctuary.
In the beginning,
where we, each other,
All and God
called ourselves
One
One
in the beginning
and it was all then,
as it is all now,
and it was all then,
as it is all now,
Amen.
by Jannie Dresser, copyright October 1, 2010
Prayer
Asked to be the prayer
not the words that contain it
not the fumbling at the fringes of the tallit
or the pressing open the thin pages of the Siddur--
the thing itself
written on the walls of the heart
where morning light and sunset light
converge at this place of meeting singing praising.
Asked to be this, together, and then left alone
as the chanting ceases and silence comes in
through the window and the door
to take its place beside us,
as those standing re-seat themselves
as those worrying restore themselves
as those mourning take comfort.
We each together,
are alone again in the elegant moment:
prayer radiating from the beat and breath
of the pulse of the heart,
for memory’s sake and God’s completion,
asking to be the prayer
and the sayer of the prayer.
by Jannie Dresser, copyright October 1, 2010
THE CHILDREN’S MAP OF THE WORLD
For my teachers and fellow students at Temple Sinai’s Shabbat Torah Study
The globe was made by many small hands;
suspended above our study tables it is imperfectly
perfect in cerulean irregularity.
Strong brown twine drops it from the ceiling,
under the skylight which lets in the light
and the vision of fog swirling outside shul.
I know preschoolers shaped it, cut it from
butcher paper: two spheres, jaggedy-edged,
pasted and colored around the rim.
Their brushes shaped oceans aqua-marine
and navy blue; for the continents
the children discovered vermilion, burnt sienna.
Here are lands where children are born,
and birds, beasts, and all manner
of creeping things arise into being.
Fishes too, phosphorescent in slimy orange.
On Shabbat, we grown-ups gather here
under this beautiful lopsided world.
We open our Holy Book to read, argue, and speak.
We offer the barucha for our time, for the book;
we offer thanks for water and bread.
by Jannie Dresser, copyright October 1, 2010
Inexhaustible
For Shekheina on Shabbat
I met her at the well where she drew
water of such blindness
that I was seen at once for who I am:
supplicant in yellow robes,
walking this alkali earth
in dusty devocation,
ullalating grief like a
war-torn mother.
Her hand was a dark brown reed
tending crimson rope.
On every finger she wore
a golden band which signaled
she was wife to many, lover only
to some. I watched as she pulled
with gentle force, earth-fingers
laced around the cord, then
she let it go.
I heard the bucket pound down
lightning strike to the pool below,
it hit bottom with inexhaustible blow.
When our eyes met, mine faltered.
I could not drink her gaze,
although I am certain it took hold
until I weakened, poured through
liquid diamonds of her breath,
her bosom, her boundless heart.
Then, with a touch,
so full of yearning, I felt
her kiss me
moistly
once.
by Jannie Dresser, copyright October 1, 2010
The images are Artist Trading Cards, copyright by Jannie M. Dresser, 2009.
