Many of you have written to ask whether I'm aware of Judge Goldstone's Washington Post op-ed Reconsidering the Goldstone Report on Israel and war crimes and the Times follow up Head of U.N. Panel Regrets Saying Israel Intentionally Killed Gazans.

I've got a nasty cold and I'd taken the last few days off from the internet altogether, but I am aware of them now, and I ask you to please bear with me. I'll do my best to have something more substantial to say within the next few days.

Shavua tov / a good week to all.

National Poetry Month begins today in the USA. I can't promise I'll share more poetry here this month than I ordinarily do, but I wanted to inaugurate the month with a poem I've recently read and thought was quite lovely:

Psalm

Give thanks for all things
On the plucked lute, and likewise
The harp of ten strings.

Have the lifted horn
Greatly blare, and pronounce it
Good to have been born.

Lend the breath of life
To the stops of the sweet flute
Or capering fife,

And tell the deep drum
To make, at the right juncture,
Pandemonium.

Then, in grave relief,
Praise too our sorrows on the
Cello of shared grief.

From Richard Wilbur's Anterooms: New Poems and Translations.

Happy poetry month to all!