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A Poem About Hebrew
by Danny Siegel

I’ll tell you how much I love Hebrew:
Read me anything –
Genesis
or an ad in an Israeli newspaper
and watch my face.
I will make half-sounds of ecstasy
and my smile will be so enormously sweet
you would think some angels were singing psalms
or God Himself was reciting to me.
I am crazy for her Holiness
and each restaurant’s menu in Yerushalayim
or Bialik poem
gives me peace no Dante or Milton or Goethe
could give.
I have heard Iliads of poetry
Omar Khayyam in Farsi,
and Virgil sung as if the poet himself
were coaching the reader.
and they move me –
but not like
the train schedule from Haifa to Tel Aviv
or the choppy unsyntaxed note
from a student who got half the grammar I taught
him
all wrong
but remembered to write with Alefs and Zayins and shins.
That’s the way I am.
I’d rather hear the weather report
on Kol Yisrael
than all the rhythms and music of Shakespeare.