Poem: Sitting on the Hillside, By Barzilai Kellajer

Sitting here on the bare, smooth hillside I contemplate.  I see the vast, silent mosaic of vineyards, orchards, and scattered groves; there, at the end, as always, raises the rosy ribbon of mountains that separates the heaven from the earth.

It is the moment when the sun starts declining dressed in its golden robes as if saying:  "don't cry for tomorrow I will be back and all of us will rejoice!"  But then I keep always telling it "yes, sun”.  You have seen from up there my lineages prowling about among these fields, hiding and appearing from the distant groves.  You have seen them working on these fields under your light...and slowly moving their carts loaded with wheat or fruit, products of their Jewish hands.

Can you remember the days when we were expelled?  They had to sell these fields and their dwellings at a loss because time was pressing.  They took everything from us and left us with just some belongings that we loaded on our carts with our wives, some of them pregnant.  Small children and our old people, some of them very ill...and started our journey towards the east, to the north...towards the sea...and who will assault us on the way?  Who will perhaps kill us?

Look, sun!  It's getting very dark!  It is time to return home; to the east…it is time to return home!  But...where is my home?  Because the world has broken our hearts into two identical pieces though our souls remain one.

Barzilai Kellajer