DAVID FLUSBERG

Birkat Ha’Bayit

…
Dive.
We honor
the inner calling
of our aquatic instinct
to swim headfirst
through the deepest passage
in the fluid pages
of the Good Book
recited fluently at bedtime.
We hold fast to the moment
of liquid atonement
for vices both known
and unknowable,
sealed in the mantras
of mystified silence,
those breathless words
breathed
by the bubble-blowing fetus
named Jonah.

We free flow in postures
of gravitational refraction,
levitating,
meditating,
awaiting
our moment of release
from the belly of the beast,
that primeval being,
leviathan
of our primal nature.
We hover in and under
the currents
of the blessed Sea
that we see,
when we peer
through the looking glass
of our scuba mask,
and into the fleeting essence
flickering in the waves
of the watery body
that animates the adventure
of our amphibious existence.

Free.
We leap loyally, boldly
beyond the bonds
of insolvent materiality,
and strive to find the child
inside the refuge
of concealed reality,
camouflaged no more
by misled sensations
of full-grown distractions.
Back again, we overflow
with hopeful conceptions,
and unearth anew
the carefree bunny,
who bounces to the beat
of the breeze through
the backyard
of our soon-to-be-seen fate.

We leap backward
to an era
before widely-cast fishnets
ensnared
our social interactions,
coerced upon us
academic abstractions,
and instructed us
to unlearn
our basic instincts;
before pushers
of penury
proscribed us
to mortgage
the yield
of education’s abundance;
before peddlers
of influence
subscribed us
to the master class
that dispenses
tactical paths
to invest
in proficient portfolios
of over-capitalized
stress.

Yes!
We yearn
for terracotta roofed mansions,
airy portals leading
to oceanic expanses,
guarded by Redwoods
beneath gilded foothills
fortified by branches
that nourish
our untamed passions
performed in the name
of Liberty.
We break free
to scribble notes
of imperishable growth
in the margin
of the last chapter,
bookmarking the climax
of our outstretched capacity.

We cry from the rooftops
songs of redemption,
expressing
the simple leitmotif
of God-given destiny,
those words:
that accept, allow, invite
you to do You
and me to do Me.