The works of Israeli poet Natan Zach (b. Berlin, 1930; arrived in Israel, 1935) are marked by a dramatic and emotive immediacy. While his motifs — the sea, the wind, birds, mountains, trees, night, moon, seasons, sky — are stock romantic images, they are set in anti-romantic contexts, conveying, ironically, loneliness, hopelessness, death. Zach's early use of colloquial Hebrew set him apart from his more classically oriented predecessors, as did his use of literary allusions from other than biblical frameworks. Give Me What the Tree Has Give me what the tree has and what it won't lose and give me the power to lose what the tree has. The faint tracings the wind makes in the darkness of a summer night and the darkness which has neither trace nor shape. Give me the shapes I once had and have no more the strength to think that they've been lost. Give me an eye stronger than what it sees and a hand harder than what it seeks. Let me inherit you without receiving anything that's not past the moment I receive it. Give me the power to come near, without fear, precisely to what I'm not meant to hold dear, let me come near.   For is the tree of the field a man whom comes in siege before you? Song by Israeli singer Yehudit Ravitz, based on Nathan Zach's poem and on the verse in Deuteronomy 20:19 (translation by Ariel Brosh) Because the man is the tree of the field; Like the tree the man grows up. Like the the man, the tree also gets uprooted, And I surely do not know where I have been and where I will be, like the tree of the field. Because the man is the tree of the field; Like the tree he aspires upwards. Like the man, he gets burnt in fire, And I surely do not know where I have been and where will I be, like the tree of the field. Because the man is the tree of the field; Like the tree he is thirsty to water. Like the man, thirsty he remains, And I surely do not know where I have been and where will I be, like the tree of the field. I've loved, and I've hated; I've tasted both this and that; I was buried in a plot of land; And it's bitter, it's bitter in my mouth, Like the tree of the field; Like the tree of the field. From Israeli Poetry: A Contemporary Anthology selected and translated by Warren Bargad and Stanley F. Cheyt, copyright 1986 by Indiana University Press. Reproduced with permission of the publisher, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana." "Do not destroy" or: Is the tree human?: Two readings of the famous passage from Deuteronomy TREES Table of Contents