Shalom Freedman

Poetry has been with me all my life. My father of blessed memory Reuben Kelly Freedman loved to recite outloud favorite passages. I learned from him the love of the sounding voice. My mother of blessed memory, Edith Zeibert Freedman loved music, and music was in her soul. I from an early age loved to read, and I found in those readings reflections of my own soul. In the American schools of my day 'memorization' of poems was a required task. But to me it was more than required. It was a passion. To memorize the lines and hold them deep inside was to enrich oneself. One can walk anywhere with a poem one has and bring it back any time, and with it give oneself energy for the heart and soul. I have loved to read Poetry all my life. I could tell the story of my first small groping efforts to make my feelings felt in words. They were strengthened by readings and rereadings of anthologies of Poetry including one little yellow- covered Mentor volume a good share of the poems of which I have by heart to this day. 'Psalms I loved and next to Psalms Wordsworth and Shakespeare, And nothing of Donne and Hopkins Coleridge and Dickinson was strange to me. Stevens and Keats and Whitman too like those words of Ecclesiastes seared my soul Poetry has been my life and all those lines of others greater than my own mingle with mine in my heart And in their sounds of love as sacred lines and thoughts remembered make us more grateful and glad we live. And in the subsequent years I have reading and writing Poetry. There is one book of poems published, 'Mourning for my Father'.(Field Books 1989) And there is another book of poetic thought: 'Life as Creation: A Jewish Way of Thinking About the World' (Jason Aronson,1993) . But the overwhelming mass of my poems are scattered among old papers, most likely never to be redeemed. Out of a sense that all would go without ever anyone knowing about it, I took the opportunity offered by the most poetic - friendly site, I know, 'Poemhunter' to post poems here. I hope they bring some light and enjoyment, some music and consolation, some inspiration and insight to any and all who read them.)