Page 97 mishkan T’Filah

 

The Diameter of the Bomb

The diameter of the bomb was 30 centimeters

and the diameter of its effective

range about 7 meters,

with four dead and 11 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 shores 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.

(Yehuda Amichai)