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The Lost Son
translated from the Hebrew by Marzell Kay

So he came back, back like a stranger
And when he came back he looked around him and could not
Remember, for all to him was unfamiliar now:
The house, the yard, the narrow path.
Their memory cut off within his heart,
Cut out and he, survived, reprieved, was now the one
Who came; he who, still there, had sworn
Though he be made a stranger, he would not forget:
A footpath in the sand, the unploughed field, the trench
That marked the boundry, the lemon tree, its bitter fruit.
He felt his absence as if preordained:
Eventually to return, come back a stranger,
A darkness memory that would not depart,
A skein unravelling, unravelled, of longings, warm
Now, which would never be respun.

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