Manna
Samuel Menashe
1973
Open your mouth
To feed that flesh
Your teeth have bled
Tongue us out
Bone by bone
Do not allow
Man to be fed
By bread alone
“And He afflicted thee and suffered thee to hunger and fed thee with manna which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know, that he might make thee know that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord does man live.”
—Deuteronomy VIII 3
Credits
Samuel Menashe, "Manna," from New and Selected Poems, ed. Christopher Ricks (New York: The Library of America, 2005), p. 70. First appeared in Harper's Magazine (December 1973). Copyright © 1973 by Harper's magazine. All rights reserved. Reproduced from the December issue by special permission. Passage from Deuteronomy 8:3 from The King James translation of the Bible.
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 10.
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