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To be a Jew in the twentieth century
Is to be offered a gift. If you refuse,
Wishing to be invisible, you choose
Death of the spirit, the stone insanity.
Accepting, take full life. Full agonies:
Your…
Blessed is the match, consumed in kindling flame.
Blessed is the flame that burns in the heart’s secret places.
Blessed is the heart that knows, for honors sake, to stop its beating.
Blessed is the…
Lord, I want to return to your word,
Lord, I want to pour out my wine,
Lord, I want to go, to go to you,
Lord, I do not know what should be done,
I am alone.
I am alone in empty air,
In terror of…
To be or not to be—that’s not the question.
Sense or nonsense—that’s my obsession.
For too long, Divine reckoning
has shredded human thinking.
The sum total of justice is a round number:
bright…
I inherited naive open-heartedness
From generations of small-town Polish Jews,
And sharp talk
From hot-bathed women in my clan.
A blind June-night mixed it all
And sent me out—
With no…
Not in vain did I vow to be faithful,
not in vain did I tag at your heels.
With the mole I struggled from darkness,
stubborn and under a spell.
You, grief of the nails on my fingers,
you, woe of my…
On a wagon, bound for market
There’s a calf with a mournful eye
High above her, there’s a swallow
Winging swiftly through the sky
How the winds are laughing
They laugh with all their might
Laugh…
Across a red horizon evening descends
In the breeze treetops tremble and sway
As we sit around the campfire and tell
Of a Palmach man, Dudu was his name
He was with us on long exhausting treks
We…
To Dani and his friends Behold, our bodies are laid out—a long, long row. Our faces are altered. Death looks out of our eyes. We do not breathe. Twilight dwindles and evening falls over the mountain.L…
On the other side of the poem there is an orchard,
and in the orchard, a house with a roof of straw,
and three pine trees,
three watchmen who never speak, standing guard.
On the other side of the…