The Talmud’s name for God appears to be
the fragment “Holy One, blesséd be He.”
And though the phrase was not in English made,
and by translation casts a flimsy shade,
the “blesséd” intimates an agency
that showers favor on the Holy One,
and so suggests and tantalizes me,
with whom the blesser is and what is done.

I recollect disgust with Sunday school
when I’d a question no one would address.
“But who created God before His rule?”
I asked: “What first bestirred the emptiness?”
I’m wondering again – is truth a ring?
Or do we bless as we invoke a king?