Joshua Friedlander
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Life is water. Creation, and the sky became a barrier between waters
Prayer sent heavenward would bring down rain, restoring life
“At the time of rain, all is pure”
1
After, the clouds disperse, the drops return to the upper or the lower realms
Flat ground dries but puddles remain. Cisterns slowly turning stagnant
Contaminated after human contact
2
Remnants stream from the mountains and soak through the earth
Pure as long as they keep moving. No-one steps into them twice
3
Ending in a cave or sunken place, at rest
If large enough for head and bulk
A mikvah, cold and silent amniotic waters of the soul
Wash your flesh, stripped and scrubbed of all encumbrance, and be reborn
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Deeper are the mysteries of the lower waters
bubbling from the abyss, driven by unseen tectonic urges
Some boiled by the fires of hell, some icy as Lethe
If surpassed by water drawn in vessels, sculpted by the fallen hand of man
it cleanses in its place, but no further
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Not so stricken waters: warm, or saline
but undiluted
Their streams are pure, to the final trickle
6
The wellspring, clean as on the day the Divine word
cleft the waters, is unsurpassed
The leper and venereal, cast out of the city
encountering the water; repent, ponder
the endless aquatic cycle, sin and forgiveness
unending
We are not free to leave
until the cycle is broken
Until the last soul
leaves the last body
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