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
