While Wearing Tallitot

I took the liberty of translating Tzur Ehrlich's poem that appeared in Makor Rishon on November 21, 2014.

While Wearing Tallitot

When we die
in tallitot
Bury us
in tallitot
They have slipped 
off our shoulders,
silent,
dripping.

Our tefillin take off from between our eyes
and place them between the eyes of our sons
For a remembrance and as signs.

But leave us in our tallitot.

Carry us between the pall polls
and with our tallitot prepare our resting-place
when we die and after we die.
And make us eternal signs with your cameras
and the earth shall tremble for a distance of 600 parsot.

In our tallitot you'll commemorate us 
For in them we lived, and we fell on our high places
and the the length of our days were our deaths.

You'll photograph us,
but not our faces;
rather they'll be within the state of the hidden face.
Our wounds are not uncovered,
only the boxes on our foreheads.

In our tallitot commemorate us
and then place us down.
Our lips then will be murmuring prayers as we lie
at the Yeshiva of On High
that which we murmur while standing
at the Yeshiva Below
and will continue at the place that was interrupted.

When we die in tallitot,
bury us in tallitot,
For there are tallitot fill of red red wine.
And while we say all this
while being laid to rest,
You'll all say after us, Amen.

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