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The Moon over Timna

In a copper house

Lived the new moon,

The new moon

Of Timna.

In a copper coat

With a thousand buttons

It was

Buttoned. –

The copper house

Got quiet

In Timna –

It used to go out,

In the dark night of course,

With its thin

Sword

Circling

Over copper

Over copper

Timna –

When it grew old;

The new moon

Grew old –

The new moon –

With its thin sword,

Turned itself

To coal –


ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

was born in Ojcov, Poland, in 1906. She began writing in Polish but later switched to Yiddish. In 1934 she emigrated to Palestine, where she befriended German-language poet Else Lasker-Schueler and published several books of poetry. She worked as a librarian at the Bezalel Museum in Jerusalem until her death in 1965.

Michael Casper is a doctoral student in History at the University of California, Los Angeles.

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