I'll Be Magnified and Sanctified - Omer Day 38

I'll Be Magnified and Sanctified

by Yehuda Amichai

Between things falling and those hastily being raised

Is there place for one who lingers, one who remains?

Between things dying and those living

Is there place for one living quietly in his house,

One who stays where he is, one who sees, one who is seen?

I'm a judge, alone in judgement on the bench,

There is no accuser, no accused,

Only witnesses and testimony.

In my childhood I knew about illness in people,

I understood sick animals,

When I grew up I learned that trees too

Can be ill and suffer in silence.

I'll live long enough to understand a sick stone,

A suffering rock, a boulder in pain.

The universe will come full circle in me,

The inanimate speaks softly, the living stays silent.

This is my place

And in this way I'll be magnified

And sanctified.

Today is Day 38, which is five weeks and three days of the Omer.
Today is Day 38, which is five weeks and three days of the journey from bondage to revelation.

Translated by Glenda Abramson from London Magazine. Taken from "A Touch of Grace," Poems by Yehuda Amichai, Photographs by Didier Ben Loulou, an exhibition publication of the Museum on the Seam for Dialogue, Understanding, and Coexistence in Jerusalem.