Sun Song
The setting of the splendid sun
When even out the dark and light
When dusk and day together run
And quondum day becomes the night

I seize my seat upon the swing
To watch the darkling evening fall
And hear each bird on wall of wing
The evening begin to call

G-d bless, resplendant sun, farewell
We'll see your quintessence ere long.
Each night they sing clear as a bell
The vespertine good-bye sun song.

-Sarah N.

It
It is nothing, but everything.
Nowhere, yet all around.
A drop of water, a raging river
A noise without a sound.

Total trust or no belief
Alone, or with a friend
There is nowhere that it isn't
A start without an end.

A soul without a body,
This nothing fills up all.
It brings you strength or weakness
To make you rise or fall.

A whisper in the wing
From heaven comes a roar.
A flash and in an instant,
This being is no more
GOD

-Tali S.

A Single Word
There is a word
Which bears a sword
Can pierce an armed man -
It hurls its barbed syllables
And is mute again -
But where it fell
The saved will tell.
One patriotic day
Some epauletted Brother
Gave his breath away.

Wherever runs the breathless sun -
Where roams the day -
There is its noisless onset -
There is its victory!
Behold the keenest marksman!
The most accomplished shot!
Time's sublimest target
Is a soul "forgot!"

-Michael L.

The Roof of Bloomberg
Looking furtively around
Up a case of stairs you run
Save your steps there's not a sound -
Up you run, up you run.
At the top a door unclose;
Daylight in the air around,
Smell of springtime breezy blows,
All around, all around.
Stand between the sun and ground,
Clouds above and trees below;
Heaven in your heart you found
Space to grow, space to glow.

-Sarah N.

I am a lily of the Sharon, a rose of the valleys
You say you are a rose,
and yet it is not so.
Have not roses thorns?
You are not the ruinous rose,

No evil resides within you, nor harm flow.
Does not the rose pale, wither, fade, ash upon the earth?
Its beauty once youthful, no trace remains of her goodness,
Purity fading with birth
Are you thus inconstant as this petty petaled flower,
Red with passion and desire,
Whose virtue lasts but an hour?

No. More fitting are you to the flowered tree,
Beauty lasting, renewing, replenishing.
Upon first sight of spring, you push forth your blooms,
Pure, precious White and modest Pink
Beautiful, pure, blossoming.
Lithe limbs laden with virtue,
Where the perfume of G-d, sanctified drips
And though the petals drop soon from your holy lips
Their perfumed scent clothes your branches,
That sturdy, constant frame,
Glowing, growing, greening, through the coldest winters, you remain.

And though stiff cold plucks petals to the floor,
I await the Spring, your holy good once more.

-Isaac K.