A few months ago I wandered in a lovely old used book store in Stephenville, Texas. My friend Doug led me to the store and we drank tea, conversed with the proprietress, and stole words by reading.
Feeling the guilt of my theft, I had to purchase a few books to make amends. So I bought Terri a beautiful hard bound book on herbs and I picked up a small chapbook by the late Menke Katz, a Jewish poet, recipient of the Stephen Vincent Benet Narrative Poetry Award, and Kabbalah scholar . The title of the book: This Little Land.
The poem that grabbed my heart is entitled "Isaiah on Freedom." I offer it to you without commentary. See if it snares your soul, too.
Isaiah is always there
where builders build a new jail.
He says: Alas, my grim sons,
the sword is still not a plow.
If one image of God will
be somewhere chained in a cell
the chain will shackle us all,
in heaven and on earth.
Angels will know the weight of
the chain, winds will not be free
to curse even their own fate.
The sky will be an endless
prison roof if one captive
wil still remain in a cell
at the end of time, nearby.
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