By Rick Lupert
– a poem for Parsha Nitzavim-Vayelech
And now, write for yourselves this song, and teach it to the Children of Israel. ~ Deuteronomy 31:19
I’d like to be told to write a song
like Moses was told. This is the kind of
assignment I’ve been waiting for.
Free reign to be an artist and
use my sensibility to pluck the
right notes out of the air.
Does it have to rhyme or will
the mouths I put it in be okay
with a little free verse?
I hope it’s not the last thing I do
like it was the last thing that
Moses did. He got to sing it, at least.
I always think the last thing I wrote
is the best thing I wrote, but
I keep breathing and another week
goes by and I write something else.
This was Moses’ last best thing
before he sent us off to
where we’ve been going.
It’s not like sending your kid
off to college. They can visit.
And if you did your job right
they probably will. Our kid is
about to get his driver’s license
so soon he’ll transport himself
to his own holy land. It’s not like that.
We never saw Moses again.
We couldn’t if we wanted to.
I want to. I want to tell him
his song is still in my mouth –
that we’re a little lost without him.
The Importance of Arts, Culture & The Creative Process
Art is how we filter the world. Without it, we're just moving forward without any sense of the moment we exist in.
What was the inspiration for your creative work?
I write a poem every week responding to that week's Torah portion. In this one, towards the very end of the Torah, Moses is writing a song which he will then present to the people who have been folliowing him for 40 years. I realized, when reading this, that all of my poetry is my "song." It's what I'll leave behind when it's my turn to go up the final mountain.
Tell us something about the natural world that you love and don’t wish to lose. What are your thoughts on the kind of world we are leaving for the next generation?
I'm terrified that we've already tipped the environmental scale beyond repair and that there is no longer a guarantee of a healthy, habitable world for our children. We can already see plenty of evidence of it now, and I just want to apologize to my son on behalf of the thoughtless industries who have been careless with our earthly riches.
