Poem Definitions: VI-X

VI. SERENDIPITOUS,  for Rachel Zucker

My heart was striving to understand it
This series of delicate, persistent events
How in the sunlight setting
We walked like players on the stage
Staged to greet him with a smile
Had I known where my part would lead
I never knew how hearts do break
And now I know they stoutly mend.
Suffering has been a darling thing
A strict teacher, an unlinier and feral friend.
A chance meeting, a happy pain to bear
Teaching me how to lean and love my savior well
Until I find every circumstance,
   A happy accident.

VII. YOUTH, for Jacob Coby Cohen

Youth is the belief that you are old
It is the voice decrying another's pain
And the woman seeking a progressive regression plan
Youth is the forgetful flights of Peter Pan
And the growling of a mad old man
"Get off my grass!"
Yes, youth is crass
And youth is this whole life
Youth is the yesterday we place
By imagination on tomorrow's face
Eternal youth is a foolish guest
But how sweet is eternal maturity
Glimpsed in a boy leading the cavalry,
In a girl beneath her wedding veil;
An old man patient with a scoundrel lad,
In Grandmother giving me all she ever had.

VIII. ACUTE, for David Minsky

 Brush aside the memory
Forget the crashing sound at night
Cast away the remembrance if you can
Of that hairy flanneled man
Begging your pardon, wringing his hands
At the disturbance he caused
The damage from a miscalculated height;
Misjudged acutely, the tree became your blight.

XI. ZEMBLANITY, For Bubbe

Honestly I wish I'd never known
That I never knew what drove men there
That I never tasted the bitter gall
That I never doubted G-d at all
But here we are nonetheless
Me and you our souls oppressed
A mighty symbol in the dirt
Proof that some with Hell do flirt.
Injustice swings a chaotic dance
Of thwarted prayers and false pretense.

X. CIRCUMNAVIGATE, for Mum

Mum it's true, these are foreboding seas
I understand the prayers you prayed for me
To be aware that storms sink men
But still I've sailed and sailed again
In mighty ships on distant seas
Finding among the winds, amid the weeds
Devils mocking my steady hope
Demons gnawing on my safety rope
"Will you be still like the mythic land?
All that is is shifting sand."
But I'll answer not their jeering lie,
It's not for man but G-d I die.
So take me winds! And break me waves!
You drive me on my certain way!
Kiss me sea mist, under the winking stars
By guiding Venus under Mars.