Shabbat Shalom

Continuing the theme of poetry from earlier this week, and as Shabbat settles upon us -- hopefully bringing with it some small reprieve from the record-setting heat that has smothered Arkansas this week -- I thought it only appropriate to share a couple pieces from my dear friend Naomi Stone:

The Sabbath

Today do nothing as

you usually do. Time is pooling

open. No sorrow in this blue

breathing air. Do not touch

the light; do not brush your hair;

do not even speak

of what binds you in the week..

You have come here to

learn to be like us, or

not. For now we each inhale our sweet

share of sky. We will not release it until

sundown.

Outside of Time

During the Sabbath you are in other time. You carry nothing

but your continuing

breath. Enter here, where

time is not

time, inside an alignment of the heavenly

and earthly worlds. The same happens when two bodies

join: the worlds rowing under each

skin climb into a zygote. Birth. And then no-time again

when the ram's horn

possesses your walled village. The men

blow the horn on each day of rest --

when you hear it, you stop

your breath and wish.

Listen. Your breath

held.

And those stars

behind the stars you recognize,

they stay.

Both can be found in Nomi's first book of poetry, Stranger's Notebook, published under the name Nomi Stone (TriQuarterly Books, 2008).