April is poetry month, so I'll be looking at some favorites. The first comes from Jorge Luis Borges by way of Norman Tidi Giovanni's translation, titled "Israel".
Feel free to share favorite poems, songs or prayers that have moved you over the years, Jewish or not.
Israel
A man imprisoned and cast into a spell
A man condemned to be the snake
Who keeps watch over infamous gold.
A man condemned to be Shylock
A man bent over the earth in hard work
Knowing that once he stood in Eden
An old man with his eyes put out who will bring down the walls.
A face condemned to wear a mask,
A man who in spite of man is Spinoza and the Baal Shem and the Kabbalists.
A man who is a Book
A tongue that praises from the depths
The justice of the skies
A salesman or dentist who spoke with God on the mountain top
A man condemned to be the object of ridicule
The abomination, the Jew
A man stoned, set afire,
Asphyxiated in death chambers,
A man hwo endures and is deathless,
Who has now returned to his battle,
To the violent light of victory
Handsome as a lion in the twelve O'clock sun.
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