Chorus of Exiled Jews - John Adams

When I paid off the taxi, I had no money left

And, of course, no luggage.

My empty hands shall

Signify this passion, which itself remembers

O Daughter of Zion, when you lay upon my breast

I was like a soldier who lies beneath the earth

Of his homeland, resolved

You said.

«I am an old woman.

I thought you were dead

I have forgotten how often we betrayed one another

My hide is worn thin, covered with scars and wrinkles

Now only doctors gather at my bedside, to tell what

The Almighty has prepared for me

«A woman comes in to keep the place looking occupied.»

Let us, when our lust is exhausted for the day

Recount to each other all we endured since we

Parted.

There is so much to get through, it will

Take until night.

Then we shall rise, miraculously

Virgin, boy and bride

To me you are a land of Jerusalem stone;

Your scars are holy places.

There, under

My hands, the last wall of the Temple.

There

The Dome of the Rock.

And there the apartments

The forest planted in memory, the

Movie houses picketed by Hasidim, the military

Barracks, the orchard where a goat climbs

Among branches

Your neighbor, the one who let me in

She was brought up on stories of our love