a poem by malka heifetz tussman

Love the Ruins

With one letter of your many names

you broke in --

and now you live

your own hot life in me.

With one sound of your many names

you pierced yourself in me --

and now you feed

on my heart's blood.

Soon

you will shatter me

from within.

Then gather up the splinters,

and love the ruins,

my God.

Tussman, Malka Heifetz. "Love the Ruins" Voices Within The Ark: The Modern Jewish Poets. New York: Avon Books, 1980.

a poem by avraham ben-yitzhak

Blessed Are Those Who Sow and Do Not Reap

Blessed are those who sow and do not reap

Because they wander far.

Blessed are those who give themselves freely, the splendor

Of whose youth had added to daylight

Though they flung off their glory where roads part.

Blessed are those whose pride crosses the borders of their souls

And becomes a white humility

After the rainbow's rising in the cloud.

Blessed are those who know what their heart cries out in deserts

And on whose lips silence flowers.

Blessed are they, for they will be taken into the heart of the world

Wrapped in a cloak of unremembrance,

Forever remaining without speech.

Ben-Yitzhak, Avraham. "Blessed Are Those Who Sow and Do Not Reap" Voices Within The Ark: The Modern Jewish Poets. New York: Avon Books, 1980.

a poem by yehuda amichai

Of Three or Four in a Room

Of three or four in a room

there is always one who stands beside the window.

He must see evil sprouting among the thorns

and fires on the hill.

And how men who went out of their houses whole

are given back in the evening like small change.

Of three or four in a room

there is always one who stands beside the window.

His dark hair over his thoughts.

Behind him, words.

And in front of him voices wandering without a knapsack,

hearts without supplies, prophecies without water,

and large stones which have been returned

and remain sealed, like letters which have no

address and no one to receive them.

Amichai, Yehuda. "Of Three or Four in a Room" Voices Within The Ark: The Modern Jewish Poets. New York: Avon Books, 1980.