The village windows are aglow at night

At each window sits a youth, pensive, dreamy

The village is asleep, but time crawls on

On the poor little workbench – meager little tools

The ceiling is low and the doorstep is low

Oh, the heft of all the world on each youth.

In the quiet of night, in the quiet of the valley,

There! See that boy, hard as steel.

In the quiet of the steppe, undisturbed by anyone

See another, deep as the earth. 

In the charcoal fumes, the smoke of night’s light

See a third, bright as the heavens. 

And the heart quivers and the heart awakens

On poor little windows the world stirs, shifts.

And this time, with a mouth parched, bound by fever

I will rise up to you and say this:

From tiny meager rooms in this mammoth land

The bold demand rises in the distance.

In the poor night’s light fuzzy with smoke

Stars reveal themselves, flicker in the skies. 

Youths carry them – barefoot and naked—

Rolled up and wrapped in village women’s kerchiefs

An aleph in the mouth, but with sorrow they carry

From doorsteps, barefoot – the stars, the world.