"GIVE ME THE PERSONS"

An equal distance from death
and birth, I know the body can’t be
without spirit, and spirit can’t exist alone.  
Like that night when sleep escaped me, in the next
room my daughter slept, and I sat, writing to the hidden
beat of a heart. I didn’t know if this was     
a proper bequest, and what’s the point of words,
of poetry, but I remembered
it was said: “Give me the persons,
and take the goods to thyself.”

תן לי הנפש

תן לי הנפש