My soul is a sparrow

And how small is it

Against the sky

How small

Against the wind

And the ocean

But its song

Is life itself

Greater

Than all its enemies

And small

Like a sparrow

Painted

In the colours of a song

A voice

Dark and light

Drowning and heavy

And sweet with lament

Drunk now

With depth

And then

Skyward bound

Ocean bound

Flooding

Lightning

Revealing

My heart

My paradise

Of mint and roses

In such hours

Lies

In the hands of Smadar

Be tender, prophetess of beauty

In thoughtful ecstacy

Do not forget that my soul

This flower

Grown

On a cemetry's soil

Is but a sparrow

My sweet

Some flowers die

Of sorrow

And on others

Sorrow

Is a mere ornament

As the night is

To the lovers' eyes

As our languages

And colours

Are to you,

Jerusalem

Our lives, our deaths

Silent chords are they

Of a song

The end of which we shall not hear

Nor did we witness its beginning

We sought in vein

To know its name

To speak its words

To call it

Our own

The dove laments

The heaviness of the sky

But the sparrow

Circling but

A small orbit

Is happy

When he finds in it

Clad

 In a nice melody

The essence of his world

Truly, I say

The sea that has carried

The ships with the spices of Sheba

Under the banner of Solomon

Under Alexander's banner

Under the banner of Yaqoub Al Mansour

Still it flows

Still it is

The same sea

And the dreams of our nights

Are its echoes

Our lives the ornaments

Of its tides

Carried in hearts that have known

The Golden Age

And are still the same hearts

Albeit saddened

By darkness

Obscured

By the trivialities of war

Clouded

But not without light

Lighten their burden then

O my sister

My darling

Smadar

By the glimpse of a future

That is the echo

Of a more enlightened past

(A word not lightly spoken

A word

That speaks

Not lightly of us)

O that man may find happiness

For a night

In the space between two deaths

Remember

That my soul

Is but a sparrow

And love

Is a heavy burden to bear

As is truth

To its seeker

And hope to the heart

That was nourished

On the bitterness

Of loss

Ay de mi

Ay de este gorrion y su alma

Su paraiso de dolor

Su corazon de esplendor

Y sus suenos

De una tierra

Nueva

Y de un nuevo cielo

Nacido del viejo

Y su flor

O mi gorrion

Tu

Qui es mi alma

Con sus suenos de Jerusalem

Y de un nuevo amor

Dror neshmati

Ve khama hi ktanah

Keneged ha shamayim

Keneged ha ruah

Keneged ha yam

Akh shirata

Hi ha hayyim be 'atzmam

Gdolah mi kol oyweiha

Gam ktanah

Kemo dror

Metzuyar

Ba tzeva'im shel shir

Ruhi usfour

Wa kam zghir hu

Muqabil as-sama'

Kam zghir

Muqabla-rih

Muqabla'l bahr

Lakinn sowtuhu

Sowtu'l hayyat wa'l baqa'

Daiman akbar min kulli 'adaa'

Wa daiman zghira

Ka usfour fi sama'

Mutala'li'

Bi'l alwan ghineti

(In the interest of literary and historical accuracy it must be pointed out that the affectionate terms used here are employed in a purely allegorical sense and that the author is not personally acquainted with Smadar.)