To All the Mirrored Doors of Beginning, a Journey Ending

“Ruth Rifka writes from the surprising advantage of many decades of life. Her age gives the book its wonderful authenticity. That she feels such a sisterhood / brotherhood to all peoples seeking answers to the same puzzles of existence is a lesson of hope for us all. We are all the same, asking only peace and understanding from our foolish species. With the young and old journeying together, we surely have hope for love and harmony to prevail. I felt privileged to read these poems of amazing insight. Their immediacy and truth are an inspiration.”


—Katherine L. Gordon, author





“In her ninety-sixth year, ‘a disappearing inkblot being born’ Ruth Rifka trysts passionately with


God, the ‘receiver of prayers,’ who allows evil. Written largely in response to war,


hostage-taking, life’s darkness, Ruth yet exhorts us to ‘live life,’ for ‘all we get is now.’


This extraordinary, moving collection of psalm-like poems includes parting blessings as


a coda to ‘the terrible, the wonderful, and the holy’ to ‘God there, in all the


greenness.’”


—Jennifer “Jinks” Hoffmann, poetry editor, Spiritual Directors International





“Timeless, while also contemporary and immediate, Ruth Rifka’s eloquent poems, written from the perspective of a nonagenarian with ‘one foot in God’s waiting room,’ are bound to engage and charm and move readers of all ages. Through an admirably wide range of moods and modes, they are speculative, inquiring, prophetic, prayerful, anxiously troubled and concerned, and spiritually luminous. Each finely written, richly imagined poem is not unlike ‘a toasted perfect marshmallow tossed / from God’s holy bonfire.’”


—Allan Briesmaster, author of Windfor and Later Findings