I Am A Man Overwhelmed By My Own Feeling Poem by Shalom Freedman

I am a man overwhelmed by my own feeling
Wherever I walk I see people I knew

On Yanovsky St. I think of Yosef ben-David
Who so much wanted to live
And who appreciated my caring for him-

Always in Shul on Shabbat near Mincha time
I think of my good friend Moshe Bobrovsky
He was the most optimistic person I have known
He always had time for the degree he was going to get
He will have to get it now in the world to come-

The Holy Teacher David Herzberg always appears to me
When I am at the Kotel
We used to meet there
The highest Torah he would say is the conversation of friends-

Rabbi Pearl with his shulmanship
In French Hill at Ramot Tzion so so many -
Ruth Barness who was so kind to me
In my most lonely years.

I am an old man now
And have had many good friends in my life
I miss many of them
I see my parents long gone
Time and again
It is too much
And I don't want to live in grief
But wherever I walk I see them
And I miss them-

I am a man overwhelmed by my own feeling
And often that feeling is the grief and the missing
Of those I knew in this world
No longer here-