Confer

Maimonides, Hafez, Rumi, Yehudah HaLevi
Leonard Cohen and James Baldwin

Confer

[Part 1]

All of them working
The repairs

From over the
Divide

They chose me to
Transcribe

I choose you to
Imbibe

On the subject of what
Constitutes

Whole
W-h-o-l-e

[Part 2]

Maimonides taught
Keep it pure

When truth arises
Minimize surprises

Disorganization
Confusion, distraction, tenses

Build around the truth
With fences

Buttress guidelines and
Protection

Above all
Or-gan-i-za-tion

Take what you know and
Catеgorize

That's what I did
12th century

This will help
Evеn if it will not stand

You will be remembered for having
Planned

[Part 3]

Well educated I am
Yehudah ben Shmuel HaLevi

Poet, physician
End of 11th century to beginning

Of 12th century I wrote almost 800
Poems

The most famous one I call
The Khazari book

Born in Tudela, then under Muslim rule
I am drawn to the Sepharad feel

To the music and the verse forms
Of the Mizrach the East

I am learning
I sought Moshe ibn [son of] Ezra

I never lost my yearning
Libi b’mizrach

My heart is in the East
Jerusalem, a must

And somewhere near the holy city

V'anochi b'sof ma’arav
Just at the edge of the West

I died

[Part 4]

Hafez Persian
I am named for memorization

Fourteenth century
I knew Koran by heart

Listen to father's
Recitation

I knew all of Rumi
In love with a beautiful

Unattainable woman
Drew a circle around himself

Forty days and forty
Nights vigil

What was out of reach
Physical

He would attain
Spiritual

[Part 5]

Rumi
Balkhi

Mevlana/Mawlana
Our master

13th century
Settling into life at the

Madrassah until he met
Shams

Shams disappeared
Where should I seek?

I am the same as he
His essence speaks through me

I have been looking for
Myself

[Part 6]

I have looked for guidance in
Wine

We might have seen that
God was there

From Rumi
I have given over a single

Poem in the last years
Of my life

Roots of the roots of the
Roots

There is I and there is
You

But not room for
Two

In one house
Knock knock

Who's there?
You

[Part 7]

You may come in since
You have cooked away

Your I
You are not a drop

In the Ocean
You are an ocean
In a drop

The universe in
Ecstatic
Motion

You will keep breaking your
Heart

Until it opens

[Part 8]

James Baldwin I am dying
In 1987

Wholeness not
Our aspiration

Everything
Splintered

What we do to fill
The cracks

With gold tincture
Beauty

Be bold
You may even

Give up the language of
Whole

[Part 9]

Some of us make
Repairs

Some of us visioning
Beauty There

From our flaws
We build a menorah

In the
Air

Above our heads
A vision

This light might
Illumine everywhere

What one person praises
Another person curses

I have fashioned a
Menorah

Out of flaws
And Verses

Now, I begin
Its repair