Reading Jake Marmer’s review of Harvey Shapiro’s posthumous poetry collection, A Momentary Glory: Last Poems (“Intense Listening: The Poetry of Harvey Shapiro” in Jewish Review of Books, 6:3, Fall 2015 http://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/1864/intense-listening-the-poetry-of-harvey-shapiro/ ) I was brought up short by the poem that begins the review:
“The Distance”
Prayer, as in:
my silence approaches
God’s silence.
The distance to be covered
is so immense
that there is time
to live my life
peacefully.