Requiem

Part kaddish, part lament, and a powerful call for stocktaking and peace, Requiem cries out for an end to carnage and slaughter: "The horror / the calamity / the disgrace, / the rubble of folly / and religion's stupidities, / the dimness of vision / and violence of despair / won't be repaired by an officer, / a bomb or a plane, / and not by still more blood. / Only wisdom of the heart could mend it... / only the gardeners of peace."Long one of the most outspoken Israeli critics of his government's treatment of the Palestinians, Aharon Shabtai is widely viewed as "the most important Hebrew poet of his generation" (The Boston Globe).