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| From the book The Evening Song | | (1996-2005) |  |
| A Lullaby | They used to sing, trying to persuade
time for bed, and on the way
they spin wool, and the sky stretches
into its own darkness.
Candlelight casts a figure eight,
ships sail into the open sea,
the sea stirs in a pillow:
in a pillow, in a seashell, in a distant window.
Where’s the Christmas knitting needle of the star?
Where is my grandmother, my sweet sister?
We’ve walked together for so long
and we’ve talked:
look it’s such a familiar,
such an unknown doorway!
Who’s missed us there? Who is so alone
in a childless home, as though in a wide-open field?
We won’t go where people are wicked,
where we are forbidden to go,
but here beds have been made for us
and we are taught to live in peace,
we will not part.
A face flashed in the window.
We have to take off our shoes when we enter.
The evening star stretched its hands to us
like an all-seeing but blind mother.
| | Slava I. Yastremski and Michel Naydan | |
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| | | | |  | | A Lullaby |
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