Now that death creeps all around<\/p>\n
and the pecans are bursting their shells,<\/p>\n
I hide within Hebrew.<\/p>\n
Nothing will befall me in innocent writing.<\/p>\n
Nothing will befall me<\/p>\n
if I am absorbed into the letters,<\/p>\n
if I don\u2019t go outside the line\u2014<\/p>\n
shrunk to a small dot<\/p>\n
stuffed inside an O<\/p>\n
or into the belly of a C,<\/p>\n
a semicolon dripping tears<\/p>\n
like a captive.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Beloved holy tongue,<\/p>\n
now that everything is in its own time<\/p>\n
and everything now is horror,<\/p>\n
when the orchard stretches out<\/p>\n
and the earth is plowed,<\/p>\n
I do only what Rilke says:<\/p>\n
let beauty and terror happen to me<\/p>\n
without thinking<\/p>\n
that this is my end.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n