This elegant poem by the late Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai captures the way that violence reverberates, the way that we are all contained within the circle of “pain and time.” It is a poem of war that reminds us that its real impact is found not in the logistics or big news stories, but in the small losses that echo outward. It’s a poem I always return to when the world erupts, here and elsewhere.
“...the solitary man mourning her death
at the distant shores of a country far across the sea
includes the entire world in the circle.”
