Sonnet #7

If violets for the love of violets bred

And robins for the love of self made homes,

Would not corrosion with itself be wed

And would the sky not clabber into bone?

If sand-crabs raised their necks for martyrdom--

Their vast ideals bloodying the sea--

Creation would not mourn; would lack the hum

Of noble fists that thump out piety.

In future days, in future evolutions

We will see the sand-crab seeped in sin:

He'll bray, and bow in mindless adoration

To gods poking white wings out through his skin.

And boldly, in the new philosophy,

He'll mull, and curse his own humanity.

27 september

i need to write a sonnet for writer's workshop in the next, ermm, say, twenty five minutes.

17 September

Blog posts=shorter and shorter.

I loooooooooove musical practice. Particularly I love Thursday Principals Rehearsals, particularly today: singing Jewish music, blocking filial ballet scenes, Hannah Diamond, Elisa Vizoso, Alec Chandler, Frank Robertson, our intense conversations about marraige and generalities and intense camera hallway escapades.

Have I mentioned that I have four husbands? Alec is my musical husband (Perchik), Reid Austin is my Choral Ensemble husband, Riley is my "Praise Band Husband/Prayer Partner" (Kaylin came up with those for reasons I will leave undisclosed....), and apparently we're going to have Writer's Workshop husbands (???). Plus, I have a boyfriend. Who I'm really very faithful to, I promise....

I am stressed. And very happy.

16 september

stress stress stress stress

newspaper stresssssssssssssssssssss

bible test/AP stats test stresss

praise band/ musical/ CE stresss

freaking college application stresssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

but:

musical+newspaper+choralensemble+marvelousfriends+

wonderfulboyfriend+nationalmeritsemifinalist+writer'sworkshop+decafcoffee+burnedCDs= mmmmm. bizzarely appropriate contentment.

15 September

Home from a quite successful (or at least, I think so) senior retreat! Now I must fervently finish National Merit Packet and homework and college stuff. Stress!

You know you have an unhealthy relationship with your father when................

12 September

I'm learning about love, and about leadership.

Good leadership, like good love-- for leadership is worked out through love-- is all about the small. We are often told as seniors (especially in the musical) that we should befriend the underclassmen, yadda yadda; when we graduate we should leave behind a negative of ourselves, imprinted on the lives of those we've served. This really doesn't seem so bad-- some of my favorite people are underclassmen! But... good leadership, and mentorship, worked out through sacrificial love (for that is the only kind of real love, is it not?), does not mean befriending the witty ones, the bubbly ones, the cute sophomore guys-- although it is important, of course, to befriend to these people, and under no circumstances am i insinuating that it is wrong or unethical to befriend people who you genuinely like, who make your insides form a happy reveille; but in the end, they are not the ones that need us. The nourishment-ratio between us and them is generally equal. But the others, ahh, they are the difficult ones!

Good leadership, loving leadership, means ministering to the untouchables. It means seeking out the silent awkward ones who stick to the back of the stage, who sit by themselves at the cast meetings; in short, the un-cool ones. They are the ones that need us! We the "big kids" tend to impact their lives in wild and sometimes accidental ways. And I'm definately not just making this up, because I was there! I was that quiet and terrified sophomore at the Pricipals Rehearsals, thrown so very far from my comfort zone, that was impacted in occasionally wonderful ways by kind and genuinely loving seniors. So, we should focus our energies into making our impact a good one. So why is that so hard?

Hannah

I think, Hannah, when you say

"I don't believe in marraige", 1. that

You are lying, and 2. that what

You mean is that

You don't believe in love.

You grieve that you have faced

The god not of man but of woman,

That you have faced her with Firstfruits and

Lamb and yet that god has not

Said a word.

I think tha tyou mean that your blood

Does not cry from the ground, that there is

No bitterness like believing

In a ghost.

Oh God, a cheap unleavened bread

Uneatable only by children. And

Sham or no sham the parade

Saunters forward,

A beat that will bludgeon you

Deaf.

I think you mean that you beat out love

Like a cheap irreverent beat.

Slack hymn, a widow's hymn, and you

Widowed before you were wed.

You tap your tattoo shameless,

Not with the concrete glaze of the Athiest,

But the listless longing of the Lost.

There is no shame in the widow's song

But sorrow. There is only

Sorrow, and the disinterested breaths

Of youth retreating, always retreating

Behind it.

Villanelle (A Brief History of Judaism)

Though I may sleep, the burning bush sparks bright.

You are no god; I am not Miriam--

I cannot burn what is not mine by right.

In future hours I see the sacred light

Of stainless souls as pyre eclipses pyre.

Though I may sleep, the burning bush sparks bright.

No dove and olive branch return from flight:

The tichel leadens, packed with ash like earth.

We burn and burn, who are not theirs by right.

The crucible revives and hardens white.

Too strong we've grown in manna and in milk.

Though I may sleep, the burning bush sparks bright.

Of Ariel and Amos, which am I?

Millenia carve out their names in flesh.

I cannot burn what is not mine by right.

We wash ashore like shards within the tide,

(We resurrect) the stars, the sea, the sand.

Though we may sleep, the burning bush sparks bright;

We cannot burn what is not ours by right.

2 September

I never realized how odd it is to have a Hebrew name until musical practice today. Of course no one else at practice had a Hebrew name! But I think that even if you are not Jewish, it is still useful for any of God's children to have a Hebrew name, for was Hebrew not the language in which God addressed the Israelites?

So, world of flaccid American Christians, I challenge you to name yourself!

http://babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/ (here's a good website.)

And so next time you see me walking down the street you can call me Ariel Mischka Yael bat Joseph (Ariel for Mizrahi, Yael for Mizrahi and Mischka for Ashkenazi: meaning God's graceful well-loved lioness, daughter of Joseph.) Mischka for short! Now that I'm Hodel in the musical, maybe I should add that to my mouthful-of-steel-shards name entourage.... :)