Tamir Lahav-Radlmesser: “Father Visits his Childhood Home”

Year Book by Tamir Lahav-Radlmesser

(30)
FATHER VISITS HIS CHILDHOOD HOME

FATHER: We arrived at the city.
I didn’t give the driver an address,
I directed him
right left right left
until I got to the house.
I moved at age eight,
fifty years I hadn’t been there
and even so I remembered the way.
ME: and then…?
FATHER: I stepped out of the cab,
I stood on the sidewalk across from the house
and stared.
ME: and then…?
FATHER: Nothing.
The house was unchanged.
It remained exactly as I’d remembered it,
maybe a bit smaller.
ME: and then…?
FATHER: Nothing.
ME: What’s nothing?
You didn’t cross the street?
You didn’t enter the stairwell?
You didn’t knock on the door?
FATHER: No.
For what? I
do not believe
in psychology.

–Tamir Lahav Radlmesser, Year Book
Tel-Aviv: Am Oved Press (2003)
Translation, M. Salomon

Tamir Lahav-Radlmesser: “אבא אבא / father father”

Year Book by Tamir Lahav-Radlmesser

(11)
אבא אבא מה היה
מה היה שם
מה קרה
ביערות
מה במחנות
ספר ספר
שאדע
מה קרה
לי שם
–תמיר להב-רדלמסר׃ ״תמונת מחזור״
תל־אביב : עם עובד,2003

(11)
father father what was it
what was it there
what happened
in the forests
in the camps
tell it tell it
so I’ll know
what happened
to me there
–Tamir Lahav Radlmesser, Year Book
Tel-Aviv: Am Oved Press (2003)
Translation, M. Salomon

Eran Tzelgov: “L’at l’at / Little by Little”

 

לְאַט לְאַט
כָּל חָתוּל
מְאַמֵּץ
אֶת הֲלִיכַת הָאָדָם שֶׁלּוֹ
אֵין דֶּרֶךְ אַחֶרֶת
כָּכָה זֶה
בֵּין סַנְטֵר נוֹטֵף חָלָב
לְצִפּוֹר שְׁבוּרַת כָּנָף
לְאֶרֶס מְדַמֵּם עַל אֲהוּבָה שֶׁהָלְכָה לָהּ
עָקֵב בְּצַד אֲגוּדָל בְּצַד צְלוֹחִית לְצַד מַגָּף
אוֹתָהּ יְלָלָה
מַבָּט מַבְהִיק
וְאֵימַת הַתְּנוּעָה הַפִּתְאוֹמִית בַּחֲדַר הַשֵּׁנָה
לְאַט
כָּל חָתוּל מְאַמֵּץ
כָּכָה זֶה

חָתוּל

ערן צלגוב–

Photo: CaT’S shaDoW by DiFo&Natura

Rachel: “And maybe…”

AND MAYBE

And maybe those things never really were,
maybe
I never rose at dawn to the garden,
to work the earth in my fury?

Not once on those harvest days, so searing
and so long,
atop the cart that brimmed with fattened sheaves,
did I not give my voice to song?

Did I never cleanse myself in the innocence
and blue calm
of my Kinneret…oh, my Kinneret-
were you? Or did I dream it?

–Rachel (1927)

Translation by M. Salomon, dedicated to Myra Sklarew

Photo credit: Israel–December 1981–Sunset Lake Kinneret by Prora

Aryeh Sivan: “To Live in the Land of Israel”

TO LIVE IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL

To the memory of Zvi Hurvitz:
Pioneer, commander, and bereaved father.

To be cocked like a rifle, the hand
clutching a pistol, to walk
in a closed, harsh line, even after
the cheeks are filled with dust,
and the seared flesh is fallen away, and the eyes can no longer
focus on a target.

There is a saying: a loaded gun is bound to fire.
Not true.
In the Land of Israel, anything can happen:
a broken pin, a spring rusted through,

or, the sudden cancellation of your orders, without explanation,

as it once happened to Abraham on Mount Moriah.

–Aryeh Sivan (1984)

Translation by M. Salomon

Photo credit: Jerusalem by premasagar

Dan Pagis: “Conversation”

 CONVERSATION

Four talked about the pine tree.  One defined it by genus, species, and variety.  One assessed its disadvantages for the lumber industry.  One quoted poems about pine trees in many languages.  One took root, stretched out branches, and rustled.

–Dan Pagis

Translation by Stephen Mitchell

Photo credit: pine-tree by Naomi Ibuki

Tuvia Ruebner: “Sham A’marti/There, I Said”

There, I Said

I set out from my temporary home to show my kids the place I came from.
There, I said, there I lay on the ground,
with a stone for my pillow, lower than the grass,
like the dust of the earth;
everything is preserved there.

We passed through mountains, forests, and cities that were
caves, and water gathered into pools along the way and the roads were bad.
The car lurched from ditch to ditch.

What is this sweet air? my kids ask.
What is this plaster that falls from the walls?

Oh, it’s nothing–nothing at all, explained the old woman in the window,
here, even the future is past. And she shut her parched eyes
like a bird that ascends, tucks its wings, and dives.

I was born here, I said to my kids,
my parents and ancestors were born nearby.
All are born … There was a house here,
I said to my kids and the wind passed
between me and the words.

I set out to show my kids the place I came from. And when
will we eat? my kids ask, and where
will we sleep?

–Tuvia Ruebner

Translation by M. Salomon from the Hebrew

Photo credit: Busy Corner by ecstaticist

Wife of Dunash: “Will Her Love Remember?”

WILL HER LOVE REMEMBER?
Will her love remember his graceful doe,
her only son in his arms as he parted?
On her left hand he placed a ring from his right,
on his wrist she placed her bracelet.
As a keepsake she took his mantle from him,
and he in turn took hers from her.
Would he settle, now, in the land of Spain,
if its prince gave him half his kingdom?

–Wife of Dunash ben Lavrat (Andalusia, 10th century)

Translation by Peter Cole

Photo credit: Anonymous by Moche

Yehuda Amichai: “Open closed open”

Open closed open. Before we are born, everything is open
in the universe without us. For as long as we live, everything is closed
within us. And when we die, everything is open again.
Open closed open. That’s all we are.

Yehuda Amichai (1998)

Translated by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld

Photo credit: Red Autumn Rose by bratjerm

Yehuda Amichai: “A Man in his life”

A man in his life-
the first temple is destroyed and the second temple is destroyed,
but he must remain in his life.
That is not like what happened to a nation
that went into exile over there,
that is not like what happened to the Lord
who simply ascended to lofty locales.

A man in his life
revives the dead in a dream
and buries (them) in his second dream.

Yehuda Amichai

Translated by M. Salomon

Photo credit: Detail from Stones from temple wall by Goldberg

Natan Alterman: “Moon”

Moon

Even an ancient vision has its moment of birth.
Birdless skies,
alien and fortified.
Opposite your window, in the moonlit night,
stands a city submerged in the crickets’ weeping.

And when you see that the way still searches the wayfarer
and the moon
still tops the cypress spear,
you say–My Lord, are all these things still here?
Is it still permitted to whisper them greetings?

From their pools, the waters gaze back at us.
The tree hushes
in the red of catkins.
Never remove from me, oh Lord,
the grief of your immense playthings.

Natan Alterman

Translated by M. Salomon

Photo credit: moon by birdfarm