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Literature and Poetry/
Tu BiShvat

Dotan Brom

Facing the Almond Tree

30th of Shvat, 5770, Feb. 14, 2010, Afula

Sometimes in the middle of the winter there are some shining days

And their air is very clear, yet nonetheless bustling

Small hopes, fragments of glory and kindness with no title

Reigns over them with the entirety of the soul and anaesthetizes

a pain - you didn't know exactly how to neglect

That lives in you – be it old, be it dim.

 

Sometimes on this type of day you know: you must forget –

everything you were taught; to behave as if you're crippled

Yet learn to move about in the world as if afresh

And it suddenly produces a possibility in the impossible.

 

Sometimes you have some really exciting moments,

finding that the world and all its parts are stitched with a string

connecting all its billion trivialities.

And it also entails joy –

knowing your place in G-ds hut.

 

Sometimes you find yourselves captive in an inflorescence,

white and fragile like faded wedding clothes.

 

Sometimes in the middle of the winter there are some shining days

and moments of splendor are bestowed on you, as you stand

like a groom who knows his dowry was already paid to him

to the universe – his love –

facing the almond tree.

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