Translated by Barbara Mann
Now that dying creeps throughout
and the pecans are bursting their shells,
I conceal inside Hebrew.
Nothing will befall me in harmless writing.
Nothing will befall me
if I’m absorbed into the letters,
if I don’t go outdoors the road—
shrunk to a small dot
stuffed inside an O
or into the stomach of a C,
a semicolon dripping tears
like a captive.
Beloved holy tongue,
now that every part is in its personal time
and every part now’s horror,
when the orchard stretches out
and the earth is plowed,
I do solely what Rilke says:
let magnificence and terror occur to me
with out considering
that that is my finish.
