Who the Hell is the Hero? The Poetry of Donna Spruijt-Metz

This week I offer you a heroic sonnet series by Donna Spruijt-Metz. What is a heroic sonnet you ask? In the 17th century the English poet John Milton wrote a series of Petrarchan Sonnets which are referred to as his Heroic Sonnets not because of the structure but because they were sonnets praising past heroics. Yet Spruijt-Metz begins this sequence with a title, referencing Psalm 27, a psalm that is known for its praise of Hashem, that then challenges the YOU (Hashem) in the poem to a stamina contest. This sequence is poetry for the month of Elul, the month when we examine ourselves, but also our heroes, when we challenge everything. It is the perfect poetry for this moment just before an American election that will change history and in the middle of this terrible escalating war in the Middle East where Bibi Netanyahu is playing “que es mas macho?” with Iran. In this moment of cruel leaders, terrible violence, and diminishing human rights, these poems ask, who is the hero? Spruijt-Metz has offered us 15 sonnets(!) that contend with the self and a “YOU”-an entity, a god, some figure beyond the speaker imbued with both human and godly attributes. The speaker in these poems resists and acquiesces; she questions, strives, worships, wonders and disdains, leaving us to question everything, but especially authority in a world that makes little sense. Yet the poems don’t leave us there. They ask of us, can we still pray for our future?

Just Gonna Keep Reading Psalm 27—I Have About 10 Translations so I Can Keep This Up for as Long as YOU Can...

but I fool myself—life just keeps on
coming at me—this insufferable
heat—our sweet planet so—angry? Offended? 
—I try to bring it down to human terms—

it’s the psychologist in me. 
As I understand it, our souls are part of YOU 
and they are drawn down into our bodies 
to make a dwelling place for YOU—here

among us—or is this just the Cosmic 
Alpaca—nudging us, spitting at our
ordinary distractions—herding us
back towards YOU—soft and skittish therapy

animals—popular in nursing homes 
trending wherever time is running out

 And in the Dream

What trends wherever time is running out? 
Sleeplessness, I wager, with her deep maw— 
her preoccupations, restless turnings.
For me, a night of strangled sleep becomes

a tiny catastrophe—rends the next
day’s fabric—and no needle can mend it. 
What becomes of us when we no longer
can keep track of time—the complex schedule

—the prescribed readings, the psalms and the songs 
—the love and struggle of the liturgy?
And when I do sleep deep—tumble into 
dreams—I wander through the strange corridors—

Last night I finally slept—and I dreamt
and in the dream I found YOU sleeping too.

 I Was Asleep

and in the dream I found YOU sleeping too.
We were both dreaming of the same mountains— 
the ones I like to call ‘mine’ but we know
that they are really YOURS. I was drowning

in my need of our blue mountains— their clouds— 
I was asleep but my heart was awake*
and navigating this fraught month—some say
this is the month to contemplate all love—

the lunge and parry of it—the low thrust— 
trust that waxes and wanes as if tethered
to YOUR wild moon—and this, my wildest love 
—this love for YOU and the hard work of it.

Others say that this is the month of return—
I am swimming upstream—drenched and stubborn.
                                                                                            *Song of Songs 5:2

In Which YOU Come to Console Us

I am swimming upstream—drenched and stubborn— 
seeking the waters of YOUR comfort.
This, this is the week of YOUR consolation!
Every year it begins here—we clamber

towards YOUR opening gates—not yet contrite, 
reluctant to do the hard work of love.
We are working, groaning under the weight.
It is said that we are given 10 days

to repair the damage we might have done
in our relationships—with beloveds,
friends, community, and with YOU. We learn 
From every human being there rises a light*

I return to my beloveds with deeds.
I return to YOU, with my seething heart.

Everyone Who So Desires

I return to YOU, my heart seething with 
miracles—my husband napping after
his first week of the semester—the dogs 
sweetly quiet for his sleeping—I can 
afford my favorite jenever sometimes— 
and almost everything savory is
a perfect vehicle for mayonnaise.
My friend’s daughter, at her book launch says this: 
“I’m tired of writing women who don’t feel
good about themselves.” Yes. During Elul
it is said that YOU are in the field— where 
everyone who so desires can meet YOU—
and I want that—maybe YOU could take me 
there. Yes. Meet me—take this longing—make me.

Kaleidoscope of Butterflies

Yes. Meet me—take this longing—make me weave 
YOUR high desert skies with YOU—as we drive 
across the town—this way, that way—the sweet 
realtor teaching her vocabulary.

Realtor—the notion behind the word is 
immobility—permanence of land—
but to me she’s Real Tower—ushering
me through YOUR incongruous constructions.

And time whirrs past us as we whirr past time— 
I view properties, not homes—I must look
over my own (three syllables) disclosures— 
inspection could reveal flaws—I’m a wrath

of new terminology. Our minds must 
create at a furious pace—like YOURS.

How Close YOUR Field?

YOU, creating at a furious pace,
will YOU spin me a robe of compassion?
Here, in these days of cheshbon hanefesh
the mother of the murdered child speaks truth—

on stage, in a tent in the wind—the crowd 
listens as she takes account of her soul— 
atoning for any wrongs she might have
done her son—then she returns him to YOU

so gracefully that the crowd breathes with her— 
as if to give her respite. It’s said that
one of the tasks of this month of Elul
is to replace blame with compassion—

and look—the mother, poised in her mourning— 
is showing us how—is wearing that robe.

Navigating in the Dark

YOU are showing us how—wearing that robe— 
the cloak of forgiveness—pardoning us— 
wiping away our clumsy efforts at 
intimacy—our ham-fisted efforts

to talk to each other—to speak with YOU—
to hear YOU in the din of our daily 
concerns—we are so loud—even our whispering. 
I have taken no notes today—although

both poets at today’s reading praise it—
the free write, time they spend with their journals. 
I do love the feel of it, my good pen
dancing across fine paper. Here I am,

finally—writing these letters to YOU— 
before new moon—the gates poised to open.

Obstruction

At new moon—the gates begin to open—
I am trying to hear YOUR heart, trying
to listen to my own—I can’t make it feel 
something it won’t—the Baal Shem Tov tells us

to stand vulnerable—our essence bare 
before YOUR essence. To stand innocent 
as a child, reaching towards YOU as we try 
to polish our souls like the best wooden

sculptures—what we need is a patina.
Today, expensive lunch with a poet
I’ve just met—my heart shrinks in its casing— 
sometimes I love immediately, hard—

sometimes my heart panics. I’m returning 
to YOU—but here I stand, in my own way.

Canopy
            “Let there be a canopy in the midst of the waters/and let it separate between waters and waters” (Genesis 1: 6-8)

Here I am, standing in my own damn way— 
drilling down into my own daft being— 
looking for YOU—for compassion—and yet 
so much war—what can I do with this but

cry out? And I ask YOU—does compassion 
contradict justice? No, YOU tell us that 
compassion means being sensitive to
one another’s souls. Funny that. Today

I spoke with bankers and brokers, people 
I don’t associate right away with
having a soul. But there I go again—
my own version of soul misogyny—

stuck and shivering in my comfort zone— 
how cold it is here, alone and unblessed.

Returning the Waters to the Earth

How cold it is here, alone and unblessed—
the last countdown before the Days of Awe
as they overtake us—and my realtor
needs to discuss leach fields. They’re new to me.

They seem primitive—yet also somehow 
sophisticated—secondhand moisture
returned to the land —less clean than it was—
but what do I know? I’m a city girl

—and at 5 days before Rosh Hashana—
we focus on day 3 of Creation—
YOU were dividing the earth from the sea, 
planting seedlings and grass, herbs and fruit trees.

Remember? So perhaps a septic tank 
is an appropriate meditation.

Testing, Testing

What’s an appropriate meditation
for these Days of Awe? One that will draw YOU 
down—back into us. They say that YOU spend 
the year slowly withdrawing from this realm

—that this is the way of things—and now 
it is given to us to find, once more,
that hint of the holy—the one buried
in each of us. And this is personal—

I am called to enter the labyrinth
system of our connections—to tinker
until I have done my part to get it
purring smoothly—but I’ve been sick for days

and YOU are distant, and time runs short— 
a cunning test. Blow the Shofar—wake me!

Unconditional Love at the Optometrist’s

Can YOUR ramshorn wake me? A cunning test 
of my awareness—can I recognize
the thin places—the liminal spaces?
Can I find YOU there? Today I found YOU

in a raging headache—not a thin place
or a sacred space—more an alarming 
nuisance—or so I thought—but in the chair 
at the optometrist’s—as he flashed lights

into my eyes and pronounced proudly
‘Yes! You need new glasses!’ and suddenly
I loved him—I loved everyone—no brain 
tumor—none of what YOU can toss at us—

just light—the lights that YOU made—a big one 
to rule day and a small one to rule night.

Who Rules this Light?

If sun rules day, and moon rules night, who rules
the light that the bombs make? Their noise, their smells? 
A different kind of light—and who made it?
It is said that all light is YOURS—and I’ve

almost made it through an entire sonnet
crown without talking about war—but now 
YOU have gone too far—in this dark morning, 
WhatsApping with S. in Jerusalem—

in her bomb shelter. What she asks is this:
“just pray the booms are real! Booming and 
sirens and all things—real?” She wants to know 
that she’s sane—a year in war will do that—

her dog is terrified, she keeps saying— 
and I have a banger of a headache.

The Heroic Part
I am swimming upstream—drenched and stubborn— 
and it is cold here, alone and unblessed.
I return to YOU, my heart seething with
YES. Meet me—take this longing—make me weave

—create at a furious pace—like YOU.
Here I am, standing in my own damn way—
but where time runs out, we sleep, our dreams trend— 
and in my dreams, I find YOU sleeping too.

Can YOUR ramshorn wake us? A cunning test.
If sun rules day, and moon rules night, then moon 
rules the gates. At new moon, they begin to open. 
Show us how to wear robes of compassion—

give us appropriate meditations!
But I fool myself—life just keeps on.

---

Donna Spruijt-Metz’s debut poetry collection is General Release from the Beginning of the World (2023, Free Verse Editions). She is an emeritus psychology professor, MacDowell fellow, rabbinical school drop-out, and former classical flutist. She was featured as one of “5 over 50 debut authors” in Poets & Writers Magazine (11/23). Her chapbooks include Slippery Surfaces, And Haunt the World (with Flower Conroy). and Dear Ghost (winner, 2023 Harbor Review Editor’s prize).  She lived in the Netherlands for 22 years and translates Dutch poetry. Her poems and translations appear or are forthcoming at The Academy of American Poets, and in the Tahoma Literary Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Copper Nickel, The American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Her collaborative book with Flower Conroy, And Scuttle My Balloon, is forthcoming from Pictureshow Press in 2025. Her new book, To Phrase a Prayer for Peace is forthcoming from Wildhouse Publishing in 2025. Find more of her work on her website: https://www.donnasmetz.com

What are five tiny delights that lift your spirits and make you happy?

1. The feel of my husband’s morning warmth as I placed my hand on his chest for a moment before I got out of bed. 

2. The demanding joy of our two pups as they rush me outside each morning—and I look up to my first view of the day’s sky.

3. The swift fire in my throat from that first sip of high quality Dutch Jenever.

4. The quiet in my studio 

5. Our daily dog walks—the solace of discussing everything with this man who I loved for four decades.

What are five tiny JEWISH delights that lift your spirits and make you happy?

1. The amazing solace of Kaddish said together—always in community

2. The shimmer of the shabbat candles—and that we are commanded to make this ritual even if we are alone

3. The scent of sweet noodle kugel—and how our friends flock to the table as I pull it out of the oven—even before I ask them to sit down.

4. There is a psalm for every need, every occasion, every moment. I don’t know if that is a ‘tiny’ delight, but it is a constant one.

5. My husband’s rich baritone and amazing Resh ( רֵישׁ‎) when he chants Torah.

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