<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">A Child is Something Else Again</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">A child is something else again. Wakes up</div><div class="">in the afternoon and in an instant he's full of words,</div><div class="">in an instant he's humming, in an instant warm,</div><div class="">instant light, instant darkness.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">A child is Job. They've already placed their bets on him</div><div class="">but he doesn't know it. He scratches his body</div><div class="">for pleasure. Nothing hurts yet.</div><div class="">They're training him to be a polite Job,</div><div class="">to say "Thank you" when the Lord has given,</div><div class="">to say "You're welcome" when the Lord has taken away.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">A child is vengeance.</div><div class="">A child is a missile into the coming generations.</div><div class="">I launched him: I'm still trembling.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">A child is something else again: on a rainy spring day</div><div class="">glimpsing the Garden of Eden through the fence,</div><div class="">kissing him in his sleep,</div><div class="">hearing footsteps in the wet pine needles.</div><div class="">A child delivers you from death.</div><div class="">Child, Garden, Rain, Fate.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Yehuda Amichai</div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>(translated from the original Hebrew by Chana Block)</div><div class=""><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><i style="font-size: 16px;" class=""><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></i></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style="font-size: 16px;"></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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