The Diameter
The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters,
with four dead and eleven wounded. And around these, in a larger circle
of pain and time, two hospitals are scattered and one graveyard. But the young woman who was buried in the city she came from, at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers, enlarges the circle considerably, and the solitary man mourning her death at the distant shores of a country far across the sea includes the entire world in the circle. And I won’t even mention the crying of orphans that reaches up to the throne of God and beyond, making a circle with no end and no God.
of the Bomb By Yehuda Amichai
Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000) served in the Jewish Brigade of the British Army in the Second World War, fought with the Israel Defense Forces in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and was in active duty in 1956 and 1973. ‘The Diameter of the Bomb’ was published in 1976 in his third book of poetry, Time . Translation from original Hebrew by Chana Bloch.
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