Oof, Calli. I'm sorry.

You're literary creatures too, so I thought you might like it as well:

The night before the ceasefire was announced, in the hours before it was announced and when it was unclear which way things will turn, and in between that and seeing the pictures from Artemis 2, I thought of one of my favorite lines of Hebrew poetry, by Zelda: "It is odd to wilt before the clouds of hate/When the heart is drawn/To a myriad of worlds." I am taking it a bit out of context, because Zelda was against the space race (especially as an act of imperialism), while I'm astound and in awe of space missions (yay, science! Yay, humans using their brains and lives not trying to kill one another!).

But I also could have not seen the pictures from NASA, read the despairing horrible world war news, and not to think of them. It is odd to wilt before the clouds of hate, when the heart is drawn to a myriad of worlds. There's just so much that's in this world, and in this universe, to wilt before the clouds of hate.

The poem in full:

Drunk, Divided Will/Zelda (trans. by Uri Segal)

The drunk, divided, bloody will
That has imposed itself on fates,
On the world’s secret,
hgg Blazes in my era’s heart.
It shackles the free rejoicing air
With a precise hand.
Sun and abyss—workhorses
On its farm.

It is odd to be a woman—
Simple, domestic, frail,
In a bold era, an era of violence,
To be shy, languid,
In a cold era, an era of salesmen—
For whom Orion, Pleiades and Moon
Are neon ads, tickets of gold, military decorations.
To pace a shaded street,
Pondering slowly,
To taste China
In a scented peach,
To gaze at Paris
In the chilly cinema,
As they jet
Around the world,
As they bloom in space.
To be between the conquerors
And the conquered,
When every being is abashed, afraid,
Alone.

It is odd to wilt before the clouds of hate
When the heart is drawn
To a myriad of worlds.