Shalom Freedman Poems

ON THE WAY HOME

On the way home
A different poem.
...

There is the fear of G-d
And there is the fear that there is no G-d
The fear of God
Is the better fear
...

After the operation
The light the morning again
To see and be in the world
Is a beauty of its own-
...

Life becomes more and more difficult
We both are not well
There seems no mercy or justice in it all-
...

I do not know why I am so lonely tonight
Perhaps it is the fear of the second operation
I today learned I will have to have
Perhaps it is the silence of an empty house
...

The poem I love
Written in the silence of who I am
Known only to my own longing
And forgotten forever
...

The pleasure of early Shabbat morning walking
The silence and peace of no one there
And a long empty road ahead-
The freedom of going on
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Death is the last visitor
at the door of another world
a visitor I cannot greet or smile at or know
who I fear
...

The list is too long
Of all those
I wanted to help and could not
It begins with my father
...

This then again
‘To thine own self be true'

But without irony or mockery
...