Believe the Times when I hardly
Believe in time, that golem facing me
Like an artist's painting
That ultra-abstracts?

And a voice replies: Abraham, Abraham,
Better not believe in yourself
Than not to believe in the facts!

And this is the fact:
In a frame, a black sore,
Sealed suddenly a name:
So-and-So is no more.

So-and-So, just yesterday in Jaffa
At the sea, read to me a sonnet.
And strode on like a young giraffe:
A Liliput, Lord, is Your planet.

So how can it be,
That he should suddenly not be?
The conch at the sea is the same
As yesterday.
The stiff-necked stone was and is
And goes on slaughtering
The foamy necks of the waves.
Even the glowworm amid deep green
Thickets —
On that teensy creature, the same Shekhina
As yesterday —

So how can it be,
That he should suddenly not be?

What a lunatic game,
To create so many isn'ts all the same.

1966