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The poem excerpted here was written in 1923 in response to growing anti-semitism in Poland. Greenberg published it in Berlin. His previous publication attempt in Poland had been seized by censors for anti-Christian content. From the Opening to "In The Kingdom of the Cross"  By Uri Tzvi Greenberg Translated by A.Z. Foreman A black dense wood has grown out of the flatlands. Such deep valleys of grief and horror within Europe! The tree tops ache, wild with darkness, in wild dark. The dead are hanged from their branches and their wounds still bleed The heavenly dead all have faces of silver And the moons anoint the brain wish such golden oil; And when any shriek with pain their voice is a stone in water. And the prayers the bodies raise are but tears into the deep. I am the owl, the mourner bird in the griefwoods of Europe. In the valleys of grief and terror, in purblind midnights beneath the Crosses, I want to raise a brother's plea to the Arab peoples of Asia: Come and deli...