Amos Noy|| CYCLAMEN

Amos Noy ||

CYCLAMEN

 
Wondrously I grew in a little house by a big wood[1]
In a world, far, far away,[2] with no law or anger
On a planet where no fathers stood.
 
My mother nursed me on milk of wolves
To be big, strong and wary of strangers,
All of them dangers, and not err in loves.
 
No cry baby, I never wept against my will.
My mother, the engine that knew she could[3]–
Pulled her lov’d boy,[4] flew us o’er dale and hill,[5]
 
Not hoping for superfluous miracles or omens.
No rain fell on the dusty earth, no cloud burst
And in corms among untrodden stones, fair[6] cyclamen
Withered in their hidden thirst.
 
Haaretz September 25, 2022

Translated from Hebrew by Vivian Eden
 
---

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_House_in_the_Big_Woods
 
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXDnFYu91vY
 
[3]  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2EhWYGbi5o
 
[4] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44455/on-my-first-son
 
[5] https://poets.org/poem/midsummer-nights-dream-act-ii-scene-i-over-hill-over-dale
 
[6] https://poets.org/poem/she-dwelt-among-untrodden-ways

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Natan Zach || The End of the World

Natan Zach ||

The End of the World

                                    translated by Vivian Eden

Completely at random, the world ended.
Trade in shares was lively, the weather splendid.
Lovers lay in beds and some on the sand.
Artists painted nature, if not the lay of the land.
Professors wrinkled brows and wrote of weighty things.
The season was any season: fall and also spring.

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