Poetry Chaikhana Sacred Poetry from Around the World

Search the Poetry Chaikhana site:

<<Previous Poem | View All Poems by Rabbi Abraham Abulafia | Next Poem >>
Circles 4 (from Life of the Future World) by Rabbi Abraham Abulafia (1240 - 1295?) Timeline English version by Jerome Rothenberg and Harris Lenowitz Original Language Hebrew Jewish 13th Century & the secret ITS MEASURE IS RIGHT     & LEFT MEASURE OF ITS RIGHT     ITS LEFT MEASURE OF ITS LEFT     ITS RIGHT IT HAS NO IMAGE     SKIES IMAGE OF ITS RIGHT     LEFT IMAGE OF ITS LEFT     RIGHT & ITS BIRTHPLACE     BEING FROM NON-BEING FATHERING FROM NOTHING     NAMES MY NAME IS OTHER THAN      WHAT HAS NO     IMAGE MY IMAGE IS OTHER THAN      WHAT HAS NO     NAME & I HAVE NO NAME     OTHER THAN IMAGE & I HAVE NO IMAGE     OTHER THAN NAME EN-EY-EM-EE     WRITTEN OUT FULLY MY NAME AN IMAGINING     FOR MY TRUTH     -- from A Big Jewish Book: Poems and Other Visions of the Jews from Tribal Times to the Present, Edited by Jerome Rothenberg Amazon.com   / Photo by striatic /	Themes   Sky         Recommended Books A Big Jewish Book: Poems and Other Visions of the Jews from Tribal Times to the Present, Edited by Jerome Rothenberg The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492, Edited by Peter Cole Meditation and Kabbalah, by Aryeh Kaplan
<<Previous Poem | More Poems by Rabbi Abraham Abulafia | Next Poem >>

Commentary by Ivan M. Granger

These lines are the culmination after several pages of circles of words, literally words written in circles that declare the nature of God and reality.

Notice the powerful sort of divine... collapse this Kabbalistic meditation evokes. Right and left reflect each other until they are the same. Image and name, tangible form and conceptual form, merge until we recognize the truth of the initial statement that "it has no image -- skies".

"& its birthplace -- being from non-being / fathering from nothing --" sounds almost like a Zen statement.

This work has that quality of certain intense Kabbalistic meditation practices of overloading the intellect by organizing and reorganizing the names of the Divine, concepts of reality, mathematical variations. Doing this over and over again until they fold in on themselves to reveal a central unity. The intellect, in exhaustion, comes to rest and finally sees this collapsed reality as a single point of Truth.

...It's been a hectic week for me. We just brought a new puppy into our family, and boy does he have energy! He spins around in circles, and I'm ready to collapse in a single point of exhaustion... At which point he promptly comes over and licks my face.

Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright © 2002 - 2011 by Ivan M. Granger.
All other material is copyrighted by the respective authors, translators and/or publishers.