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.

a poem by gad hollander

Fugato (Coda)

I made a song and placed it far, near God,

a doublewind, a song of love;

I made it out of breath, it gasped for touch.

I made it in the empty mind, a thought

of smoke, of limb and skull, of memory;

I placed it far, a poem for the pure one.

I taught my song the algebra of praise,

it sang the praise of God, it sang in a space

confined to song, far, near God.

A doublewind, a song of love,

children pranced according to its rhythm,

and all the summers heard it, the summers of smoke.

I made it in my mind, and the empty sky

soon filled, and the far places heard it;

it gasped for God, I made it out of breath.

A song, a thought, a memory of song;

I made it once, and twice, and always.

I made a song and placed it far;

it sang the praise of God, in a space confined

to breath it sang. I made my song

in the empty mind, God claimed it as his own;

the song of love,

the doublewind.

Hollander, Gad. "Fugato (Coda)" Voices Within the Ark: The Modern Jewish Poets. New York: Avon Books,1980.

a poem by mani lieb

Psalmodist

Let shrieking steel and gray stone be set

For green grass; the clash of hammer and tongs

And the rush of wheels - birdsong;

Grating of saws - the summer cricket; the pious poet -

The merchant. And as in earliest and early days

The grass will shoot its stalk through the rock

In rhythm with the cricket; and over the clanging shock

Of steel - the bird's song will range far and away.

So too the poet: pious, from market noises,

From business bustling and the wheels' clatter

He will move apart with parchment, ink and feather

To the holiness of the word, which in its commonness

Is strong - to stitch prayers for the world: to knit

The heart to God, to unbind the sorrow on silent lips.

Lieb, Mani. "Psalmodist" Voices Within the Ark: The Modern Jewish Poets. New York: Avon Books, 1980.