To All the Mirrored Doors of Beginning, a Journey Ending

Ruth Rifka

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN:
  9798385233915
  9798385233922
• eBook ISBN:
  9798385233939
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

In her ninety-sixth year, Ruth Rifka still finds herself searching out and advocating for ultimate truths. To All the Mirrored Doors of Beginning . . . A Journey Ending spans the beginnings of the Ukraine/Russia war and the first seven months of the Israel/Hamas war. It is a journey of seeking and forming a Weltanschauung, a facing down of one's mortality, while preoccupied with the realities of war and navigating the stress of facing down and coming to terms with the imminent demise of a husband in palliative care. In the writing process, the poems become sustaining prayers for peace, guidance, expressions of humbling gratitude, and parting blessings for the reader. WINNER OF THE 2025 CANADIAN JEWISH LITERARY AWARDS PRIZE FOR POETRY

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgements
• The Most Dangerous Animal in the World
• The Search Slows Down
• Art
• Today, I Am a Frightened Old Child
• With Every Breath
• Living the Answer
• To All the Mirrored Doors of Beginning
• We Are the Offspring Stardust
• Nevertheless
• Everything Breathes of God
• Education
• The Oldest Person in the Room
• Lament for the Crucifixions of October 7
• We Are on the Edge of Chaos Again
• This Lament Continues
• Standing Over One’s Own Grave
• Sand
• What Exactly Are You God?
• In a Hymn of Sounding Glory
• God’s Endless Confession Booth
• Standing Near the Edge of Chaos in a Time of War
• Remembering My Dark Funk at the Lovely Beach on a Perfect Day
• Vade Mecum
• The Re-Naming of Things
• We Are Instructed:
• How to Die Alone
• The Morning Prayer
• There is a Candle in the Dark
• Does the Divine Sensorium of God
• World War Three
• The War Against the Jews—Day 86. Israel, Ever Startup Nation Built on Ashes,
• Day 88
• The Hostages. Day 88 of the Unspeakable
• These Are the Messages Writing Themselves Out
• Lament
• Kabbalah
• Gnarled Old Tree
• Future Evolve
• Experimental Flaw
• If This is the First Day and the Last Day of My Life, How Shall I Proceed?
• If This Is the Last Day of My Life, How Shall I Proceed?
• If This Is the Last Day
• Shoah
• Make My Peace
• Lou, I Held Your Hand
• Last Messages: The Writing on The Wall in a Time of War
• In My 96th Year
• Full Circle
• I Will Go Out Fighting
• This War of Wars and More Futile Quarrels with God
• From a Dinosaur Evolved a Soaring Bird
• All the Journeys’ Ends Are New Beginnings
• Mashber, The Birthing Stool of Crisis
• Old Age Must Live with Not Knowing
• Unicursal Labyrinth
• IS
• Form Returns to Formlessness
• The Garden Breathes into Winter
• Coda to a Bitter Story Unfolding
• PARTING BLESSINGS, AS I LEAVE—
• How Beautiful the World Could Be. And is.
• IF GOD IS IN THE EVERYTHING, AND IS
• Tree Artist Has Burst Out Wild and Fast, This June. It is Day 261 of War.
• Glossary