FOR A REASON

Everything happens for a reason.
No before or after in Torah.
Happy families are all alike
but every unhappy one's unique.

No before or after in Torah.
When Joseph went down into Egypt --
every unhappy one's unique
but he was not afraid.

When Joseph went down into Egypt
despite the sandy-bottomed pit
he was not afraid
his sons had Egyptian names

despite the sandy-bottomed pit
he flourished where he was planted
his sons had Egyptian names
the first in all the generations

to flourish where he was planted.
Unknown Ephraim and Menashe
the first in all the generations --
may all our sons be like you!

unknown Ephraim and Menashe
who rewrote our family karma
may all our sons be like you
sweet as parchment's honey.

Who rewrote our family karma?
Happy families are all alike.
Sweet as parchment's honey.
Everything happens for a reason.

This poem came about in a roundabout way. I settled in to respond to the poetry prompt in the latest issue of Diane Lockward's poetry newsletter, which invited me to come up with lists of clichés and advice and to make use of anaphora, a kind of verbal parallelism. By draft three, I could see that there was something there, but the form wasn't quite working for me, so I deleted everything except the lines I liked -- most of which had something to do with Torah and with the Joseph story.

The emerging Joseph focus wasn't all surprising, since I came to work on the poem after spending some time with Avivah Zornberg's take on Joseph (specifically the essay "What if Joseph Hates Us?" in her brilliant The Murmuring Deep: Reflections on the Biblical Unconscious.) So I decided to run with the Joseph idea and see what happened. The desire to use repeated lines led me to the pantoum form. This is the third or fourth draft of the pantoum. It's a long way from the poetry prompt which started the whole journey, but I'm pretty happy with it.

If the names Ephraim and Menashe don't ring a bell, you might enjoy my post This week's portion: the blessings of Ephraim and Menashe. The notion that there's no before or after in Torah (ein mukdam u-muchar ba-Torah) is a classical rabbinic dictum and exegetical tool. (In other words: Torah often operates on levels beyond the linear. As, I suppose, do pantoums.) All thoughts / comments welcome!