Song and Me

HAYIM GURI

THE SPRING

This is it: by the pungent smell from the flocks,

By the bubble and welling of water,

This is the voice of the spring.

On a night of Hamsin, which has stifled

The wind and the stars.

I knew it, I knew it for certain:

It is you and no other,

Whose name is on the lips of men far off,

To whom you are the good beyond all price,

The hope all hopes beyond,

Dwelling secluded in the crevices.

Yours are the blessings of exhausted ewes,

Of all who slake and still their parching throats.

And when the dark has brought bewilderment,

You are the only friend and comfort left.

And he whose pen records the trail by night,

He too, a suppliant, has bent the knee

Beside you-best of all the wayside inns,

The crown of all the adventures of the way.