How can I bear your trouble, your burden, and your strife all by myself?
It takes a village
It takes a shtetl
It takes two or more
It takes divine intervention
It takes thirty nine years in the desert
It takes a population explosion of complainers
It takes the words of a spiritual
It takes men appointed over men appointed over men
It takes wise men
It takes men you know
It takes an acknowledgement that it takes women
It takes ancient cities on today’s maps
It takes commands
It takes the memory of mountains
It takes a vanquished enemy
It takes verbal acknowledgement
It takes lawyers
It takes not playing favorites
It takes leadership training
It takes all the things you should do
It takes the right order of the right words
It takes righteous words
It takes five books
It takes ten more chapters
Before you leave the fantasy novel of our past
Before you enter the archaeology of our past
Before the promised land has its golden age
Before it all goes to Sheol again
You cannot do this alone
The trouble, the burden, the strife
Do not do this alone.
You’ll fall apart.
Los Angeles poet Rick Lupert created the Poetry Super Highway (an online publication and resource for poets), and hosted the Cobalt Cafe weekly poetry reading for almost 21 years. He’s authored 23 collections of poetry, including “God Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion“, “I’m a Jew, Are You” (Jewish themed poems) and “Feeding Holy Cats” (Poetry written while a staff member on the first Birthright Israel trip), and most recently “Hunka Hunka Howdee!” (Poems written in Memphis, Nashville, and Louisville – Ain’t Got No Press, May 2019) and edited the anthologies “Ekphrastia Gone Wild”, “A Poet’s Haggadah”, and “The Night Goes on All Night.” He writes the daily web comic “Cat and Banana” with fellow Los Angeles poet Brendan Constantine. He’s widely published and reads his poetry wherever they let him.
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