This poem was translated from the Yiddish by Etta Blum.
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Shall we perhaps begin anew,
small and toddling,
with a small folk?
We two, homeless wandering among the
nations.
Laborers of the soil will bow before you,
for you will have become a drowsy idol
subsisting upon sacrifices of scorched flour.
I shall stroll about reciting the wisdom of the
people,
my words never finding their way
outside our borders, and the least child
will greet me with a good-morning.
Shall we perhaps go home now, you and I,
to begin again small from the beginning?
Begin once more! Be the small God of a
small people!
Transparent Jehovah, how largely you grew,
spreading over the seven skies and continents
to become that universal God of steel,
with vast churches and synagogues.
You abandoned the field and the stable;
I, the circumscribed love of my people.
Alas, we both ended up by becoming uni-
versal.
Go back, beloved God, go back to a small
people!
Begin once more with idolatry!
Become ours again and wholly.
Also, I shall stroll about,
speaking plain words that
will be mulled over in the dwellings.
Let us be provincial, you and I,
God and the poet,
which will be more to our liking perhaps.
You will begin with the small truth,
and no longer promise the multiple joys:
You will keep in mind the man,
his flesh, his bone, his vices,
the wine enrapturing his spirit,
the body’s joyousness.
And in those moments when his heart
invokes you, believing,
you will love him simply.
From blood and from the ax and from mur-
der shall you be estranged,
having chosen to be the achieved God of the
minion
rather than the powerful God of cut-throats.
You will become closer to us,
and together we shall spin new human laws,
more suitable both for you and for us.
Shall we perhaps begin anew,
small and toddling,
to grow with the growing borders
of a blessed land?
Children will confront us with laughter,
seeing that we are poor and without guile.
Your godly blessing will be entirely adequate
for a kindly and peaceful people.
And my words will be treasured
as in the bosom of one’s family.
Your nostrils will begin to sense
the first burnt-offerings of a people
just beginning to cherish its God
with all that is truly precious.
I, too, shall be protected and caressed like a
Child
and cradled into a narrow, comfortable
fame.
For outside of these borders
none will heed—
neither your name nor mine.
Shall we perhaps go home, you and I?
Shall we perhaps, unconquering, go home?
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