The barn

                    To ChayaZeltzar

We used to sleep, youremember,

on top of a heap of wheat.

The shame when the firstrays woke us

as they smiled through a pitchfork’s teeth.

And as we slept, youremember,

all the streams of light

that watered the fields of the homeland

poured through us in the night.

And as they poured, theyblessed us,

renewed us and fulfilled us.

That light is with mestill.

My dead

‘Only the dead don’t die

Only they are left me, theyare faithful still

whom death’s sharpest knife can no longer kill.

At the turn of the highway,at the close of day

they silently surround me, they quietly go my way.

A true pact is ours, a tietime cannot dissever.

Only what I have lost iswhat I possess forever.