Today's poem is by Suzanne Edison

Commandments with a Line from Jack Gilbert
       

Tikkun Olam, repair the world,
says your target-practice, moth-eaten faith.

Implying brokenness.
The world however demands

Nothing. No other world

but this one. Yes, there's sorrow
and the measured line about that sorrow.

Yes, the unremitting skid on black ice,
the old terror that haunts your dreams.

But you've taken your foot off the brakes
remembering, you must risk delight.

The way salt and lime sweeten the papaya,
and every fall color is due to absence.

You find a ruptured, pale blue robin's egg
and featherless remains. The curled carcass

you leave on a fencepost for crows.
On the outer half-shell you write, open

Copyright © 2025 Suzanne Edison All rights reserved
from Quartet
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission