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Volume 4

Secret Wonders

For Elizabeth

 

Born silent, born still,

With the beauty of an angel,

Elizabeth passed from my waiting hands,

Into the hearts of her parents.

First breath, last breath,

Breathed within

A body full of love;

Youthful, hopeful, anticipating.

Now a body full of sorrow.

Elizabeth…a mother’s child,

Embraced by three mothers,

Gave tiny footprints, inked mementos of

What might have been.

Yet as with life itself, we are

Guided by fleeting moments of

Sweetness remembered

And promises dreamed.

The veil of death’s darkness

Will disappear like melting snows

In springtime.

Mercifully, prayers will turn

Cries into song,

Loneliness will fade.

Life will move on.

Elizabeth has touched us all.

But her death will not harm us,

For she has summoned the secret wonders

Of what means love.

And we have now become her children.

 

 

Michael R. Berman, M.D.

November 1, 1999

 

 

 

Vernalis

Belonging to the Spring

 

Undaunted, I greet the paradox of spring.

I dream …of golden notes

Floating in the silent night.

Joys of breaths and heartbeats

Simple passions of delight

Sing on winds diaphanous,

Of the glory of the bloom

Which never disappointing,

Soon, bathes all beloved

With perfect hope.

It is the season of opulence

When sweetness obscures

Dark halls of winter's liar

And dew upon the grasses

Cast light of morning's hour

Into the windows of the soul

Where fragments of loveliness…

Of love, coalesce

Into being,

Magnificence.

For a beloved friend.

 

In Brief Moments

From Luke

In brief moments

I opened my eyes

When you,

My source of life,

 

Were near;

And glimmered

At your love with fear

That the cries I saw

Were sentinels

For grief,

Without relent;

And that each

Would smother

 

The breaths

Of joy you sent...

To me

Before my birth.

 

But as they closed,

Perhaps to rest,

A vision did my

Mind digest,

Then turned my grimaces

To smiles.

For what I saw

Was but the flow

Of love's liquour

Upon ageless

Hopes and dreams,

To nurture voiceless souls;

Sure reminder of our

Inviolate bond…

Never to perish

Or be forgotten,

In my brief moments

And beyond.

 

Michael R. Berman, M.D.

August 25, 1999

Memnon

My tears are watermarks

Which imprint forever

Sentient reminders of gentle hopes

And dreams subdued.

Extant in painful thought they are

And sleep afar

In caves of ancient echoes

Wailing for my perished child

Who now guised in angel's silk

Sings madrigals of sweet delight

And turns my tears heavenward

To drift peacefully into the

Forgiving canyons of winters night.

 

Memnon, the son of Eos, Goddess of Dawn,

who mourned his death by weeping every morning.

This poem is written for a colleague's daughter,

born still.

The Drought

For Alison

 

I am drowned in drought,

Absent words.

No answers.

I extract painful whispers

From barren mouths of darkness.

Of songs, lost in the mire of

Forsaken dreams,

I hear nothing.

My womb has become an abyss.

My heart an empty vessel.

Yet,

The evanescence of my sorrow

Carries melancholia aloft on wings

Of forgetfulness.

Leaving love and life

To feel forever.

To remember always.

Rubicon

For my  daughter

 

i.

Our home is

Filled with love,

And you.

Flowing.

A caress of the sea.

Sweet.

A chant of the wind.

Glowing.

Electricity in our veins...

Pride

Bright dreams.

Promise.

On mountains draped

With mist;

Mystery.

 

 

 

ii.

Freely

Fly with butterflies.

Love gardens;

Love deeds,

Worth,

Compassion.

Ensheath yourself

With the garments of humanity:

Morality.

Hope.

Beauty.

Let aspersions of the moment, melt.

Savor peaceful dreaming,

A silent poem,

A mellow thought.

 

Commence and share.

Plant flowers

In arid air

Where misfortune breathes.

"Guide seekers to the land of bliss."

Begin each day with a kiss

Be aware.

We Love you.

 

June 11, 1999

Note: The Rubicon is a small river

in Northern Italy. When you cross the

Rubicon, you set upon a course from which

there is no turning back

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Distant sunsets

For Cynthia Rose

 

We look to distant sunsets,

Where muted dreams are dreamed

And searing pain's extinguished

To learn that in the silence

We can still hear music play,

Velvet notes which cushion

Every thought of darkest sorrow,

And believe despite our pining

There will live in distant sunsets

Forever thoughts of you today

And in our muted dreams tomorrow.

 Cynthia Rose, parent's third consecutive loss...

Hesed

For a beloved caregiver

 

You are a muse of healing.

Your hands

Like summer meadows,

Catch silent silhouettes of

Gentle breaths which caress

Forsaken hearts

To dance about again,

While instruments of

Sunlight stream

On fragile leaves of promise.

…And in quiet shadows

Of peaceful dreams,

Play duets of hope and affirmation

Uplifting curtains of uncertainty.

 

Michael R. Berman

 

Hesed. In the discourse of Jewish Mysticism,

the human hand becomes analogous to Hesed or

"grace" which is symbolic of one who performs a

mitzvah.

 

Tiferet

In prayer I plead return,

And in dream, awaken!

I fall to stare at gleaned grasses

scattered about forgotten fields,

singed by a senseless lot,

and thirst to cry forever.

 

Yet,

I will not be draped

in the blanket of loneliness called solitude.

For deaf of song and absent of vision

of who I am and who are my children,

its veil will descend, then disappear.

We are "alive together".

 

The margin between breath and breathless

is narrow, like twilight and darkness.

Moments of simple thoughts

become ageless memories.

There is triumph to taste,

love to embrace;

havens of hope to inhabit.

 

Soon, the curtains of chaos

will rise with the setting stars

as memories of joy

bond with joy itself

and I will smile once more,

at last to breathe a painless sigh

of what is love.

April, 1999

 

Tiferet, in the discourse of Jewish mysticism

is one of the ten Sefirot and represents

beauty, harmony and truth. 

Written for a friend, father

and husband.

 

 

 

Rivulets

For Lil

 

These are days of tears;

Mist from souls of friendship,

Prayers from bottomless hearts.

Love ripples the silence of fear

Like stones dropped in tide-less ponds,

To carry hope beyond infinity

And dance among the sunshine and blossoms

Of ordinary days, while

Waves of virile uncertainties

Spawn rivulets of faith.

Reason probes for reason.

Yet there is elegance

In the threads of our destiny:

Simplicities of truth entwined

With the complexities of why?

Woven from the sweetness of our moments,

They become the fabric of our being.

 

Transition begets renewal.

As seasons fuse,

Darkness of long winter nights

Becomes an apparition.

Life burgeons, promises mature,

Inspirations thrive and

Fortune ascends on the

Vapors of despair until

despair exists no longer.

 

May, 1999

 

 

 

Erinyes

What I am, I am.

My afflictions are my affections.

My chaos, civility.

Tides pause, breaths sigh.

Those who dream, dream.

While I with pleasure cast

Ravages and travail obscene,

To a venomous sea, to shatter

Upon the cliffs of despair,

Forgotten forever

As I travel, un-traveled avenues

Of promise.

Michael R. Berman, M.D.

April, 1999

In Greek Mythology, Erinyes is the avenger of wrong.

betsy sabga

 

© 1999 Michael R. Berman, M.D.