Samuel Menashe

Revives a relic Liquefies dry blood Touches a corpse To the quick Converts a monster to love— Who made man from mud

more than the black which it displaces— Upon any fine day I jump these traces

Water opens without end At the bow of the ship Rising to descend Away from it Days become one I am who I was

His body ahead Of him on the bed He faces his feet Sees himself dead, A corpse complete With legs and chest And belly between Swelling the scene Of the crime you left, Taking your time, Angel of Death

( Morton St. Pier) Lying here Flat on my back I can almost see Myself in the morgue On a slab, tagged I am the corpse No one will have Not stabbed, stored No one takes my life It goes by the board

When my mother She who is not All at once Was a young girl Who she was I could see Before the War Waits to be My mother Reading sad books Yet she is In eternity By the river Already I told her Sometimes, she Mother She always Looked up, wisely Whose child Would be But did not dream Though not yet The one The day I would Could not be Whose son Be born to her An other You see

For John Thornton Fellow fugitive Forgive yourself And me thereby Thus we can live Whatever’s left Of time for us, Each day a gift We take on trust

The stars are Although I do not sing About them— The sky and the trees Are indifferent To whom they please The rose is unmoved By my nose And the garland in your hair Although your eyes be lakes, dies Why sigh for a star Better bay at the moon Better bay at the moon . . . Oh moon, moon, moon

So they stood Upon ladders With pruning hooks Backs to the king Who took his leave Of gardening This morning I am forlorn As he was then No one born After the war Remembers when

In their doorways women sit sewing By the good light of afternoon And nothing is beyond knowing Though the sun shall go down soon A shepherdess near a bramble ditch And the Princess in the Alcazar Keep the same precise stitch And they both can see far And when the knell tolls All are wondering who— If it is a lady, many bells For a beggar, one will do