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Lately, there’s no trace left
Of Yankl, son of Yitskhok,
But for a tiny round dot
That rolls crazily through the streets
With hooked-on, clumsy limbs.
The lord-above surrounded
The whole world with…
I saw my father drowning
In surging days.
His weak hand gave a last white flutter
In the distance—
And he was gone.
I kept on alone
Along the shore,
A boy still,
With small, thin legs,
And have…
A Jewish Wedding
Deep in fields the klezmers can be heard
Driving horses foaming at the mouth,
Relatives, both poor and rich, arrive
To Reb Sane’s daughter’s wedding feast. [ . . . ]
But from a…
How can it be told in simple, quiet words?
How can you gloss over the sharp outcry
So that people will listen to it and be silent,
With mute eyes, even without a sigh?
Without a sigh, since every…
My palms are raised toward you,
To the little light
Which I still have in your eyes,
And you—sharpen your teeth
For the softness of my yellow flesh;
And were this flesh to be thrown upon the field
An…
Hush little baby. Forty-six years now
the night has rocked itself in my empty cradle
Now a gray head is rocked to sleep with the same tune:
Standing at the cradle’s head
No angel with two white wings…
I weep, and am amazed. I have seen death so many times and have controlled myself. Have experienced so much torment, disgrace, and humiliation, and…
The days of my life pass by, dissolve like mist.
I don’t know the what and when; I don’t know the who.
Baal and Astarte have grown alien to me.
My kingdom and my foes grow alien, too.
I don’t…
And thus it came to pass, and this was the beginning . . . Heavens tell me, why?
Tell me, why this, O why? What have we done to merit such disgrace?
The earth is dumb and…
The end of the day approaches.
The Book of Life and Death
is about to be closed,
and the hand of God will inscribe
the destiny of man.
It hesitates, trembles, stops.
A voice, sweet and frail,
an…