Work Text:
The leather of my sling is dry, but my eyes are moist.
I will write your name on the walls of Adullam's cave.
Mychal, you are the perfect rhyme in my arid desert,
The breath that the harp lacks, the rest of my soul.
Do you remember the evenings when the wind from Guibea
Did you carry the sound of my strings to your apartments?
You were the giant's daughter, the pride of a pariah king,
And I, the son of the field, armed only with my torments.
You loved me for my music, or perhaps for my luck,
When you lowered me through the window, on the end of a rope,
Weaving with your sheets the path to my deliverance,
While your father was shouting about discord.
But today, the throne of Judah weighs heavily on our hearts.
The linen of my ephod seems to you an indecent shepherd's habit.
You search in my eyes for the reflections of an old fear,
While I search in you for the girl ready to protect everything.
The Ark of the Covenant entered the holy city,
I danced until I was forgotten, naked under God's gaze.
But your gaze, Michal, was nothing but cold.
A burst of burning contempt, like a final farewell.
Are you the prisoner of a collapsing lineage?
Or am I the stranger in your palace of fine cedar?
Our memories are like ashes that the wind comes to mix together,
An unfinished psalm that will never find an end.
I paid you with blood, with a hundred trophies,
Yet, I was never able to buy your forgiveness.
In the book of my songs, your pages are stifled,
Michal, my first love, my most beautiful and saddest gift.