poem on a photograph

Submitted by antonia on Wed, 07/29/2009 - 15:05
by Yehuda Amichai
It was on a nice long table armed with computer, papers and the original text in Hebrew that Ayala and I sat down to share this poem together. With her knowledge of the original and my liking for translation, we came up with the following. Apologies to the poet himself, if our version is less than perfect.

Sad in a photograph in a forest before spring.
Bare trees penetrate slowly
my soul and the rustle of last year is in my feet.
But the words ‘before nightfall’ are still sweet
in my ears and as soft as the inner side of prophesy.

At noon my voice rose like a sudden wind
and I bought a suitcase with a zipper for my travel.
God, the things one buys oneself in a life,
also shrouds, also a gravestone.

I washed my hands in front of the mirror and knew,
what created man, created death.
And of the five that were once together,
only three are left, and they are strewn.

God will raise the dead, perhaps. But rifts
he will not heal, nor fractures will he close,
even the one in the road outside your house
will grow longer and wider out into the world.

(trans. Ayala Byron, Antonia Pont)

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I really enjoyed this poem! And it sounds like you are preparing to travel. Where to? X Cordelia

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