Be Careful

BE CAREFUL

- by Natan Zach (b.1930 Berlin)

Be careful. Open your life
Only to the wind that has
Touched distance.
Suffer the absent.
Speak up, only in the nights
Of solitude.
Know the day,
The fixed season, the moment,
And don’t beg.
Pay
Attention to what
Is still.
Learn to bless
The shadow just
Beneath the skin.
Don’t hide in words.
Sit with the counsel
Of worms,
And the wisdom
Of the maggot.
Don’t expect.

* * *

translated from the German and Hebrew of Natan Zach by Peter Everwine and Shalumit Yasny-Starkman