Hamutal Bar-Yosef was born on 1940 in Israel, in a kibbutz near the Sea of Galilee. From 1987 through 2003 she taught in the Department of Hebrew Literature at Ben-Gurion University in Beer-Sheva.
AT FOUR THIRTY IN THE AFTERNOON
Hamutal Bar-Yosef
At four thirty in the afternoon even the tree
stretches itself, like a child at daycare whose parents are late,
ready to embrace any strange adopting arm,
stretching its branches with all its might
reaching toward any passing cloud:
Hurry, enfold me in your step-wings,
Don’t leave me to grow dark
with the sunset.
At four thirty in the afternoon even the tree—
how much more so people in need of love.