And Will They Ever Come - Lea Goldberg

[Larry Robinson]

And Will They Ever Com

And will they ever come, days of forgiveness and grace,
when you’ll walk in the fields, simple wanderer,
and your bare soles will be caressed by the clover,
or the wheat-stubble will sting your feet, and its sting will be sweet?
 
Or the rainfall will catch you, its downpour pounding
on your shoulders, your breast, your neck, your head.
And you’ll walk in the wet fields, quiet widening within
like light on the cloud’s rim.
 
And you’ll breathe in the scent of the furrow, full and calm,
and you’ll see the sun in the rain-pool’s golden mirror,
and all things are simple and alive, you may touch them,
and you are allowed, you are allowed to love.
 
You’ll walk in the field.  Alone, unscorched by the blaze
of the fires, along roads stiffened with blood and terror.
And true to your heart you’ll be again humble and softened,
as one of the grass, as one of humankind.

	- Lea Goldberg
 
(translated from the Hebrew 
 by Rachel Tzvia Back)