SEE (ELUL 10)


beyond brand labels
beyond the face I've learned
to cultivate
beyond the words I drip
like honey from an apple wedge
I want you to see me

see my missteps
and love me anyway
fiercely as the earth
loves the star it circles
inexorably as the tide
that rises and falls

on the mountain of God
there is vision
I am seen, I am afraid
made in your image, I see
you everywhere
when I open my eyes

Don't we all yearn to be truly seen for who we most deeply are? And, more than that, to be accepted and loved in the wholeness of our being?

Toward the end of the story of the akedah, the binding of Isaac (about which I wrote a poem cycle some years ago), we read that Avraham named that mountaintop "God Sees." Torah continues "as it is said until this day, 'On the mountain God is seen.'" There's a bit of an aural Hebrew pun which is lost in translation; the word-root denoting seeing is very like the word-root denoting awe or fear of God. Perhaps one might also say "on the mountain God inspires awe." Or maybe it is the act of seeing and being seen which evokes awe.

Shabbat shalom to all.

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.