Parting

Poem (translated from Hebrew by Uvi Poznansky) 

written by my father, Zeev Kachel

For you I sing a dream, a dream of love, of awe

To the throb of a violin

Darkness crouches. An abyss opens a jaw  

In a chaotic spin… 

The night weighs heavy. In it I am tossed 

Into a caldera

A God I seek, a God gone missing, lost

In this sorry era.

For you I sing a dream, a dream so wonderful, so strange

To the sound of heartstrings plucked 

As over notes the hour strides, at the edge 

Of light.

And here are we, both, in murk adrift

Like an echo’s echo

Through life’s reflections, for sign of spring we sift… 

Now whereto?

Why are you sad, sweetheart

As night descends?

By the bonfire my embers soar, they start

As my hour ends.

And when at last I’m nothing more than

Dust

Read for him what I’ve sung for you, as my heart began—

As it stopped. Crushed