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Sleeper with your heart stirred,    burning, storm-churned,
Shake off sleep, come out now    & walk in the light of my eyes.
Onward, rise, & ride!    For you a star shines.
Who lay down in a pit    climbs to the peak of Sinai.
They shouldn't crow "Zion is to blame"    when it's always in my sight.
I'm revealed & concealed,    I erupt but hear your prayers,
Who more than I     has mercy on my child?

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My daughter are you lost coming home?
As your coffin lowers into the grave
I have nothing left of you but a thought
& my heart goes to the earth you're under
When I turn to find you & you're gone
            Because death has come between us

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Daughter removed from her mother's room
How can I live when her limbs came from me?
Picturing her I could split apart stones
& how did the moon's glow so fade away?
I see her there in the grave at her wedding--
How could she make a clump of earth her canopy,
& how will the clods underground turn sweet for her?
I'm more bitter than bitter, you're not there, daughter
            Because death has come between us
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Flower picked far too early,
Her image before my eyes as if bound there--
How can these tears rush like a river,
A child of stars slip into the ground's arms
& how is sunlight shrouded by a worm
While she wears coils of the grave like a bridal veil?
Oh my daughter, no plea can undo this ruling
            Because death has come between us
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"I hear a mother's anguished cries like birth pangs--
Let her be, her mind has turned bitter
Since death has risen in her window.
Her luck went away with this penalty
Which changed her joy to wailing
& tore a vine from the ground of her heart."
Why, daughter, should I cry: your ears stopped up
& not a word in your mouth to answer me
            Because death has come between us
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My daughter how you've bowed me in sorrow!
"Oh if only, mother, you didn't give birth to me--
But now how entirely you've turned me away,
Since you raised me for the angel of death.
When my time came to marry you sent me
Adorned with a garland of earth
& sat me under a tomb for a canopy--
Helpless, I know, you never wished this--
            Because death has come between us
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May the One whose judgments can't be undone
In his gentleness release your bonds
& no longer send punishment upon us.
In mercy may he leave off his plagues
& from his great heights comfort our hearts.
At the end of days may He wake you with bright dew
& take your right hand in his righteous one
            Because death has come between us

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