Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A ZEMERLY FOR RABBI NACHMAN: 1. RABBI NACHMAN GOES INTO THE WOODS, by DAVID RYTMAN SLAVITT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A ZEMERLY FOR RABBI NACHMAN: 1. RABBI NACHMAN GOES INTO THE WOODS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: He would go, in his broken-heartedness, into the woods
Last Line: To open again, soothed, or even healed.
Alternate Author Name(s): Sutton, Henry Benjamin; Slavitt, David R.
Subject(s): Clergy; Forests; Priests; Rabbis; Ministers; Bishops; Woods


He would go, in his broken-heartedness, into the woods
every day, as if he had an appointment
to talk for an hour to God, speaking in Yiddish,
or maybe not speaking, but only repeating one word,

or less than a word, a syllable, a single
vowel, a howl, a pure vocalization,
from which he expected little result. "Zimzum,"
God's apartness, or say, His withdrawal, requires

drastic, desperate measures, and Rabbi Nachman's
keening out in the woods he believed would work
like water that can wear away a stone.

The stone, he said, is the heart -- not God's, but his own,
that little by little he might contrive to soften
to open again, soothed, or even healed.





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