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Old Age
translated from the Hebrew by Aura Hammer

I who was a ram in Jerusalem
A young man of lean muscles in Jerusalem
Skipping and lusting on the stairs of Jerusalem,
Now calculate every step every stride
Up toward the love=dens that have forsaken me.
I slide clumsy on the slope
Rolling down with Jerusalem stones,
Clutching like a desparate survivor the memory of my youth:
A forgotten lesson from the classroom
About a cruel and precise law
Of the sloping plane.