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Cry those tears,
heal the future generations
who must battle that old wound over and over, again
With Shaken to My Bones, Brian Rohr has crafted an astonishing set of parsha poems, a multilayered midrash, questioning the text, challenging God, while still embracing love and the earth. As a maggid, a storyteller in the finest sense of the Jewish tradition, he weaves together elements of Torah into a new tapestry, creating a personal, ancient yet contemporary and magical work.
“If you think you have read enough poetry books inspired by the weekly parsha, you might have to think again— but only after reading this one. Turn it and turn it again! In Brian Rohr’s exquisite poems, wonders unfold: a star traverses the sky before there is a sky or even stars at all, and a covenant is taken from the sky and made into a knife for circumcision. Crisp lines like ‘It is solstice and warmth is a distant memory, like fresh plums picked from the neighbor’s tree’ augment the wonder of the book. The author, also, never leaves behind a reader. Instead, Rohr manages to weave readers into poems of biblical reflection, by telling us, for instance, of ‘Twelve sons, each with a complicated past like your own complicated past’ and calling for the cities of refuge from the Torah, but for the persecuted of our times. So, yes, we are taken along on a journey both ancient and immediate — one that is rewarding beyond comparison.”
—Baruch November, author of Bar Mitzvah Dreams
“Like all good poetry, Brian Rohr’s book stirs more questions than it gives answers. And like all Torah, it seeds more questions than it sprouts answers. Munch on the harvest!”
—Rabbi Arthur Waskow, founder/director of The Shalom Center and author of many books including the Freedom Seder, Seasons of Our Joy, Dancing in God’s Earthquake, and Down-to-Earth Judaism
“Brian Rohr’s Shaken To My Bones honors the biblical ancestors by engaging in the dance of interpretation. The poet explores the books of the Torah with a clear sense of the pathos of the patriarchs of Genesis and their descendants, sensitively giving voice to dilemmas, wonders, and sorrows. For Rohr, the entry into sacred text is a process of widening the self, like ‘surrendering to some great river, whose destination is unknown.’ And yet, there is also a sense of the poignant gulf between a contemporary life and these culture-shaping myths; as the poet writes: ‘How am I to understand the instructions they left me when so much has happened and so much has changed?’ It might be that Shaken To My Bones will inspire the reader to engage in some midrash-making of their own.”
—Rabbi Jill Hammer, author of Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women and The Jewish Book of Days
My father’s uncle stood
before me.
His smile, distant, gentle yes, though far
away, like seeing/not seeing through thick
gray clouds, a barrier of weather,
between me and my ancestors.
We share a sacred name, he and I.
Forged in the tongue of the ancient ones,
bestowed upon he, father of thirteen,
father of nations, a heel of a man
the stories say.
Oh, what did I inherit?
I never knew him, Yaakov.
He died young yet steadies my footsteps
when I am called to approach the scroll.
Curious, open, even disturbed.
Hungry for meaning. Hungry for roots.
We become I/uncle/ancestor.
Merge into letters and sound,
trust in those who believe
names have meaning,
words have power, intention.
All together we dive headfirst into a stream of
answers and questions, undulating in a dance,
reaching for a glimpse of the divine.
I could be here forever.
I am in a room, within a book,
I am beside the Pacific Sea,
I am in a forest gathering fir cones.
I am studying the magnificence of creation.
I am here with my ancestors, ready.
La’asok, b’divrei, Torah
Blue and red birds appear in my birch tree,
squirrels run as I open the door.
They are charming, not my kin.
Truth is, I rarely welcome these days.
I long to open my tent like Abraham, the ancient one,
gather a choice kid, cook for a guest.
Offering up the most perfect grains,
fill the belly and heart, share music, truth.
I long for eyes and mouths,
words spun around the galaxy of a room.
Breathing the breath of a friend.
I long to dream wildly of angels bearing news.
Of cousins bearing news.
Years ago, in the before times
loved ones on the couch
or standing in the kitchen
told of pregnancy, of laughter,
of unbelievable events.
What is your message today? I hope to ask.
What bit of wisdom do you bring?
Between the stories of celebration and pain,
the holding of space, the counting of stars,
even between the longing, the answer,
as always, will be revealed.
What do I desire enough to please
the dirt and the trees, to please
the timbrels and the lyre?
Unblemished? Impossible.
Not interesting nor worthy the attempt.
Redemption, return from a great ordeal.
Healing, a wild ritual initiated.
ALIVE!
Blood sacrifice and crimson stuff,
cedar and hyssop.
Renewed, we can become an artist,
a poet, a tender of the land.
We can become a teacher.
We can become a friend.
When no one knows who
or what Azazel is anymore,
we are lost in time,
in relations with the Earth.
Old words not valued,
old ideas not taught.
How do relationships even exist?
Azazel.
Azazel,
we stumble even at your existence.
Do you locate like Jerusalem, a place,
a sanctuary, the edge of a raging cliff?
Are you an old god, a demon,
breathing the Earth’s dreaming?
What knowledge is held within you?
Tell me about rituals in the wild,
about long hair and horns.
What do you do with a goat
offered in your name?
Azazel.
I assume you know the worst.
That in our search for Hashem,
we betrayed the Earth,
the holy ground.
