My Child Wafts Peace

Portrait of Yehuda Amichai
Yehuda Amichai 1924–2000

My child wafts peace. When I lean over him, It is not just the smell of soap.

All the people were children wafting peace. (And in the whole land, not even one Millstone remained that still turned).

Oh, the land torn like clothes That can't be mended. Hard, lonely fathers even in the cave of the Makhpela* Childless silence.

My child wafts peace. His mother's womb promised him What God cannot Promise us.

* The traditional burial place in Hebron of Abraham and the other Patriarchs and Matriarchs of Israel.

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