Friday Dispatch: Trees, Water, Armchairs in the Woods

Instead of more words

Friday Greetings,

Today, instead of reading more words, join me & my mom on an excursion:

That’s it. That’s the whole Dispatch.

Please take good care of yourselves this weekend.

Shabbat Shalom and love,

Jena

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I, May I Rest in Peace

by Yehuda Amichai, trans. Chana Bloch & Chana Kronfeld

I, may I rest in peace—I, who am still living, say,
May I have peace in the rest of my life.
I want peace right now while I'm still alive.
I don't want to wait like that pious man who wished for one leg
of the golden chair of Paradise, I want a four-legged chair
right here, a plain wooden chair. I want the rest of my peace now.
I have lived out my life in wars of every kind: battles without
and within, close combat, face-to-face, the faces always
my own, my lover-face, my enemy-face.
Wars with the old weapons—sticks and stones, blunt axe, words,
dull ripping knife, love and hate,
and wars with newfangled weapons—machine gun, missile,
words, land mines exploding, love and hate,
I don't want to fulfill my parents' prophecy that life is war.
I want peace with all my body and all my soul.
Rest me in peace.

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