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It Could Always Be Worse: A Yiddish Folk Tale
Margot Zemach
1977
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A children’s author and illustrator, Margot Zemach was born in Los Angeles. Her works included adaptations of folktales for children. Among her many awards were the Caldecott Medal and the Lewis Carroll Bookshelf Award.
The cheeks collapsed and the eyes half-shut,
My mother listens as her knees sigh:
The whole morning under the winter sky
She ran about to every market.
So let us now at the gate of the wall
Sleep…
An old sight too has its moment of birth.
A birdless sky
Strange and set apart.
Facing your widow on the moonlit night stands
A city plunged in crickets’ tears.
And when you see a road still…
When you acquire a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years; in the seventh year he shall go free, without payment. If he came single, he shall leave single; if he had a wife, his wife shall leave…