Beginning words:

All beginnings are difficult –

Especially difficult beginnings,
Where nothing exists before
And nothing exists after if
The beginning ceases to begin.

Some make ends meet: taking two
Different points and bringing them
                        Together

Here we make beginnings
(And after we make beginnings meet):
Taking two different points and
Creating them, separating them,
(For what is creation if not separation?)
But only so that later they can be brought
Back together again in a much deeper way
(For what is separation if not a means to unity?)

Creation is really very sad:

Before the beginning everything is one
And only, consumed within the source:
Body and soul do not exist for they are in
A place where the white space between the
Ink, the pauses between each note, do not
                        Exist.

Only He alone exists and He is everything.

Before the beginning these words are
Of one inkwell, without form, feeling,
                        Of function

In the beginning
G-d created
The heavens
And the earths

Then separation: G-d created,
Separated heaven and earth,
Body and soul, matter and
Spirit – and a universe of
Cold darkness, where one
Can look at a façade and
Not see its purpose, look
At a face and only see pain,
Came into being…

The earth was astonishingly empty
Darkness on the surface of the deep

But then:

G-d said
Let there be light
And there was light

True, creation, beginnings are
About leaving the comfort zone
Of before, where everything is one
And at home, for a place that is foreign
And alone, where we do not recognize
From where we come and to where we
Go, but, without the fragmentation, with-
Out the darkness we could never have the
Light, without the black ink of limitation
We could never have the white page of purity.

These are words, letters, poetry –
Creating light, ideas, prospects,
By separating inks, letter, words,
And bringing them back together
In a unified message, a cohesive
Whole portraying truth and life.

This is creation, existence, beginning –
Bringing the letters, the words, fragmented
Particles which surround us and are within
Us, back together and creating with them
Light, happiness, purity and innocence:
                                Life!

We are all beginners –
        If we weren’t we’d be enders…

And beginners are always passionate.

May we always be beginning –
        And may the beginning always be us:

May we always be beginning new things –
And may the beginning always be new to us.




Mendel Jacobson is a writer, poet and journalist living in Brooklyn. His weekly poetry can be seen at jakeyology.blogspot.com