The Diameter Of The Bomb - Yahuda Amichai

[Lawrence Robinson]

The Diameter Of The Bomb

The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters,
And the diameter of its effective range about 7 meters,
with four dead and eleven wounded.
And around these, in a larger circle of pain and time,
two hospitals are scattered and one graveyard.
But the young woman who was buried in the city
she came from at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers,
Enlarges the circle considerably…and the solitary man,
Mourning her death, at the distant shore of a country
            far across the sea,
includes the entire world in the circle.
And I won’t even mention the crying of orphans,
that reaches up to the throne of God and beyond,
making a circle with no end, and no God.
 
    - Yahuda Amichai