Contribute a translation | Source (English) |
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Please God
Let me light More than flame tonight. |
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More than wax and wick
and sliver stick of wood. More than shallow stream of words recited from a pocket book. |
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But rather with this touch of torch
and spell of prayer let me light a way towards You let me dare to radiate a rapt request that with this lamp the world will rest a stilling hand on pounding heart and take a breath – a pause – to start to appreciate the state of things …just as they are |
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And spill this light
to stain the sheets so feverishly inscribed with what the future will bring. |
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Washed away in what’s today
– present, patient, allowing space. |
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The ache for arrival laid to rest
our wreck un-rectified…as of yet. |
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Yet rest us well
in humbling fact that we are made replete with lacks The future’s but an ornament on bounding limbs of present tense. |
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All force and foist
of fists and fights flooded out by candle-light incandescent with acceptance – allowance made for imperfections. |
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We offer up our Sabbath rest
Forbearance on our table set. |
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A chance for us to savor food
to honor all to prize, to prove that there’s matter higher than a week of labor than lofty goals and courting favor. |
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For a match-box and a bit of wax
can top and tumble all of that. |
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So as sun sets
we raise a blaze. Resplendently We offer praise. |
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As light leans in
and grips go lax our ache for future slips into the past. |
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Arrival, a candle.
Impatience, in vain. The World to Come has come and come undone by flame. |
We are grateful to Chaya Kaplan-Lester for graciously sharing her prayer for candle-lighting with a CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license, along with her d’var torah for the parsha Ki Tissa.

“A Prayer before Candle-lighting, by Chaya Kaplan-Lester” is shared by the contributors with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.
PDF (or Print) |
Dear Chaya,
Your poem is beautiful.
So are you.
Thank you for sharing the light of your being.
~ Marcy