Article

Where are you tearing to, my poor heart, as if you were still looking for your incarnation? 1973/1977

Oh, what fire in the broken bread, what pure Dawn in the dimmed stars! I see the day coming among the stones, You are alone, black-robed, in its whiteness.

I'm made up of cells: How far I am from their inhuman perfection 11/8/1976

trans. Yiddish Ruth Whitman 3 I'll set out for Beer Sheva and go to the Bedouins and ransom a donkey from them, no matter what it costs, Is it my fault that the slave trade still goes on with God's creatures in Beer sheva? I'll prepare an apartment for him, invent a name, tell him…

Here the restless voice consents to love The simple stone, The flagstones that time serves and delivers, The olive tree whose strength has the taste of dry stone. The footstep in its true peace. The restless voice Happy beneath the rocks of silence, And the infinite, indefinite reply Of the herd-bells, shore or death. Your…

Remember that I'm your friend: you can tell me everything. And you can tell me everything, too. I'll remember that, stone. 7/25/1977

trans. Hebrew Ruth Whitman —You're behaving like a child, you are. —I know. Thank you.      I am a child; and that other child who blew up our            Zelda-tank,      how old do you think he was? That wild beast.      It's lucky that with only one hand I could still empty a            full round at…

There was a sword Struck in the stone's mass. Its handle was rusted, the ancient blade Had reddened the stone's grey flank. And you knew You had to seize all this absence with both hands And pull the dark flame from its sheath of night. Some words were carved in the stone's blood, They told…