Clouds of abasement close around me,

and a fog of barrenness is my mantle:

to stand a tamarisk, and press no cluster of grapes;

to dwell with the eagles, and build no hut for a wanderer.

*

Like the barren woman among women am I:

with the pallor, in her face, sickness and care,

and in her mind whisperings:

Did I have to marry,

to parade my failing before people

and make of myself a laughingstock to my companions?

Would that I had stayed unwed —

the spinster never knew the barren woman's disappointment.

*

I fed my soul with promises (ah, hope —

is it a deceiver, or a faithful guardian?):

like the sand of the sea shall be the seed of Sarai,

barren into old age.

A smile, a choking in the throat, and:

I praise God I am not a tree that breeds bitter fruit.

*

Nor a fig tree withered by a curse, down to the leaf.

If I am no mother who bears,

neither am I a hangman who robs a mother of a child that was made.

*

Barren — what of it?

Does she not bend over little ones with love?

What mother ever loved her children

with the love of Jesus as he utters the blessing?

And is creation anything but love?

*

And barren still! Who said so?

She is one of the beautiful houris,

one of the seventy, the believer's dream;

if she has not given birth, it is not for barrenness

but a boon from the gods:

to savor delight

(fertile, fecund in what it fashions)

night after night after night,

until, when dawn comes,

she flings herself into its arms a virgin,

knowing of the secrets of creation what mothers never know.