The Breath of Every Living Being

“I look for you,” writes Solomon ibn Gabirol in eleventh century Spain. “I don’t know how to look for You,” writes Annie Kantar in twenty-first century Jerusalem. What about me? This summer, my fifth book of poetry, The Loneliest Monk, will be published. As I discovered while reading and rereading the collection of soon-to-be-published poems, I realized that I had spent close to four years writing about a character who longs for some kind of ultimate connection. Connection to what? To whom? A parent? A woman? A plum? A painting? A poem? The Divine? The Divine as present in every thing, every being, human, animal, plant, work of art?