In this digital extra, local poet and author Joy Ladin takes us on a journey of existence and awareness through her poem entitled “Your Body,” which is featured in her latest poetry collection Shekhinah Speaks.
Hear more from the author and learn about her latest poetry collection in this full-length interview.
Read the Full Transcript:
Joy Ladin: This poem is called Your Body. It comes from the final section of the book where the Shekhinah is trying to get the human you to say, I do to – to enter into this conscious marriage.
And the text from Isaiah includes the, quote:
Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.
Where is the house you will build for me?
Where will my resting place be?”
And the Cosmo article is, Inside the scam of the purity movement.
Your Body
You keep trying to escape
the body I love,
the blazing crush
of physicality, impurity, and shame
separating you from yourself,
from your soul, from me,
the body I formed
in your mother’s womb,
delivered, dandled, nursed and comforted,
the body that fails you
in so many ways,
through which you struggle to materialize
the way tomorrow struggles
to materialize through today;
blessing through pain; love
through the flesh I made
to be a place
where you and I can rest,
hang out, go crazy for one another,
marry, say goodbye, apologize,
consume and burn like incense,
blaze, plead, pledge, proclaim,
be held and protected, given and accepted,
born, and born again.
It’s me you feel
moving inside you, my presence
that’s so hard to reconcile
with your sexual nature
and the nature of sex
that sometimes you feel violated,
devoured,
tell yourself that you’re no good,
imagine me
demanding you preach
gospels of fire, gospels of bone, gospels
of coming to an end.
I didn’t make you to end.
I made you a whirlwind
of appetites and offerings
I never stop wanting,
ceremony and sacrifice,
wine and reckoning,
comedy, coolness, birthing and healing,
falling in love,
romance, yes, and sex.
Your body is a stream from which I drink,
a hand I hold,
a nipple I lick,
a story I tell over and over,
a Sabbath I keep for pleasure;
a way of being alone;
a way of being together;
my choir, my throne,
my crazy music,
my dog-eared paperback.
Thank you.
