Shalom Freedman Poems

WE MISS OUR LIVES AS WE LIVE THEM

We miss our lives as we live them
And we will not wholly restore them
...

I hope that God does
There are many signs that God cares for me
I have had and I have many blessings in my life-
But there are other signs
...

I write
I write
Though I have already written so much
I write
I write though I have largely said
...

IF I SAY

If I say, “I am a poet who has been where no other poet has ever been before'
If I say “What I have seen and said, no one else has ever begun to dream”
...

With the whole day and the whole night
And who knows how many years before me-
It is all open and waiting
And here I am alone and uncertain-
...

I may write still more
I should perhaps have been wiser
And concentrated on only a few
Over many years
...

Where to begin again?
And how to begin again?
...

After the afternoon nap
The mind has a new life
...

Did not know how to end the longing
To begin again-
It did not know how to end the longing
For love and laughter
...

One can wait forever for a poem
That will never come-

Or one can sit in silence
And listen to the music of one’s mind,
...