Languages are like cats:You must not stroke their hair the wrong way.The clouds come from the sea, the hot wind from the desert,The trees bend in the wind,And stones fly from all four winds,Into all four winds. They throw stones,Throw this land, one at the other,But the land always falls back to the land.They throw…
Let my right be forgotten, and my left remember.Let my left remember, and your right closeAnd your mouth open near the gate.I shall remember JerusalemAnd forget the forest — my love will remember,Will open her hair, will close my window,will forget my right,Will forget my left.If the west wind does not comeI’ll never forgive the…
IMy life is the gardener of my body. The brain—a hothouse closed tightwith its flowers and plants, alien and oddin their sensitivity, their terror of becoming extinct.The face—a formal French garden of symmetrical contoursand circular paths of marble with statues and places to rest,places to touch and smell, to look out from, to lose yourselfin…
so that on the day of loss you’ll be able to say: last seenwearing such-and-such, brown jacket, white hat.Try to remember some details. For they have no faceand their soul is hidden and their cryingis the same as their laughter,and their silence and their shouting rise to one heightand their body temperature is between 98…
In the synagogueIWithin meMy heartWithin my heartA museumWithin a museumA synagogueWithin itIWithin meMy heartWithin my heartA museum
Inside the synagogueis me.Inside memy heart.Inside my hearta museum.Inside the museuma synagogue,inside itme,inside memy heart,inside my hearta museum
A streiml he wore for prayerA silk top hat he wore to govern,fly in the wind of the deadabove me, float on the waterof my dreams.I come to the Street of Prophets–there are none.And the Street of Ethiopians–there are a few. I’mlooking for a place for you to live after mepadding your solitary nest for…
As far as I’m concernedThey are all surgeons. All of them.They dismantled usEach from the other.As far as I’m concernedThey are all engineers. All of them.A pity. We were such a goodAnd loving invention.An aeroplane made from a man and wife.Wings and everything.We hovered a little above the earth.We even flew a little.
bring back the memory of flower and fruit, medieval cities,metals, knights who turned to stone, roses,spices whose scent drifted away, precious stones, lots of red,handicrafts long gone from the world(the hands are gone too).Circumcision does it to us,as in the Bible story of Shechem and the sons of Jacob,so that we go on hurting all…
There I met people who grow date palms,there I saw tamarisk trees and risk trees,there I saw hope barbed as barbed wire.And I said to myself: That’s true, hope needs to belike barbed wire to keep out despair,hope must be a mine field.Translated by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld
