. . . Make yourself a heart of many rooms and bring into it the words of the House of Shammai and the House of Hillel, the words of those that declare impure and those that declare pure . . . – Tosefta Sotah 7:7
My heart is a house of many rooms,
enough for a hotel.
Some contain love’s wisdom,
rooms hung with blended tapestries
of past and present.
Others, rooms of wisdom
learned at life’s knee
or scholars’ feet.
Rooms of anger,
once intense, now resolved,
and rooms where
bitterness still festers.
Rooms of pain
adjacent to rooms of joy,
connecting doors between.
Rooms of conflict and of resolution,
of rewards and of failure,
of discovery and of loss.
Rooms wanting revenge
and those forgiveness-filled.
Rooms for healing
and rooms where
illness thrives.
In one large room,
a tabernacle.
Inside, an ark
with two sets of tablets,
one whole, one shattered.
There is more to see.
Follow the stairs
that lead up and lead down.
My heart is a large home,
always accepting guests.