Poetry

I'm made up of cells: How far I am from their inhuman perfection 11/8/1976

September 1982 (in connection with non- standard and negligent building in Lebanon) And it so happened that a soldier in the reserves      accidentally            pulled the latchet of a cannon — and a multi-story building five kilometers away fell heavily      on its occupants, eighty-five casualties. Only a few were rescued from the      ruins: an old…

trans. French Lisa Sapinkopf The fire haunted our days and consumed them, Each greyer dawn its blade wounded time. The wind knocked death on our bedroom roofs, The cold never ceased encircling our hearts. It was a beautiful summer, faded, cracking and dark, You loved the softness of the summer rain And you loved death,…

Remember that I'm your friend: you can tell me everything. And you can tell me everything, too. I'll remember that, stone. 7/25/1977

trans. Hebrew Ruth Whitman At five o'clock I'm going to meet a man at four o'clock a woman rises in me to go to the meeting. At five o'clock I go to meet a man and a woman. The man is new to my hands. Amazes all my memories. The woman is black. And seven…

Oh, what fire in the broken bread, what pure Dawn in the dimmed stars! I see the day coming among the stones, You are alone, black-robed, in its whiteness.

If it comes to pass that I have to shout: “Long live Poland!” —what language will I have to do it in? 1975

trans. Russian Richard Lourie In memory it will be like this — the Dnieper River, Trukhanov Island, springtime, a near crimson sunset . . . us running together, arms racing in air. A nameless sadness went through my heart. Why? Weren't we together. Us three. At our games. But then evening fell. Time to leave….

Here the restless voice consents to love The simple stone, The flagstones that time serves and delivers, The olive tree whose strength has the taste of dry stone. The footstep in its true peace. The restless voice Happy beneath the rocks of silence, And the infinite, indefinite reply Of the herd-bells, shore or death. Your…