Here’s another poem I am reading this Saturday at Beth Am Synagogue, but this one is a translation from the Yiddish (original here).

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by Yermiye Hesheles

You glimpse once
among time’s leaves:
a pressed flower
fading.
Its kind long ago
extinguished
its perfume
speech
gesture:
bilions of years distant.

If you sense the flower’s
deeper avatar –
it’s no longer silent.
It’s an avatar
of God’s.

And you call out:
Om mani padme Hum!

Here is a poem I will be reading aloud this Saturday at Beth Am Synagogue in Baltimore, prompted by our rabbi to think about the topic of return.

The Ingathereds

Even mistakes do what they can
bringing the most of themselves
to the failure fair.

A sweet grimace of misunderstanding
slips from error to error.

An unexploded sun fumbles at the earth with thick rays.

Under a millstone, a mud-swaddled mushroom
ponders its toxin, deeply felt legacy.
Turning, a moon faces its mother
with the homey side, its poxy jewels.

“The title of the book, One Nation Taken Out of Another, really comes in the form of a question, and this highlights a significant stylistic aspect of Berger’s poems. The question mark gets a heavy workout in these pages. Whether it’s in dialogue (“Vos iz mitn goyish? I say. What’s with the goyish? Speak Yiddish like we do at home.”), the poet speaking to one of his characters (“Nachshon, need a shower?/Nachshon, foxy fish down there, huh?/Nachshon, one small step for man?” – Hagode shel Peysekh”), a riddle asked of himself or the reader (“How do you English a Yiddish nation?”), the effect is to put the reader on the spot, get him/her involved.”

A nice review, by Charles Rammelkamp, here.

Post-call on the pediatrics ward, Hillel Yaffe Medical Center. The team for most of call was two doctors and a nurse, all Muslim Arabs, and a Jewish nurse and intern. The atmosphere was warm and good, despite the general despair evident on everyone’s face, even though the news was open on one of the computers in the background, despite Code Red warnings heard occasionally from the app that a Jewish nurse and an Arab doctor had running. We talked freely about baseless hatred toward both sides. Freedom of expression. The fucked-up situation.

All the while, the Arab team members treated Jewish infants with dedication and a big smile, as Jewish staff treated Arab babies with the same dedication. In the afternoon, when the Ramadan fast was getting harder for one doctor and he asked to rest an hour or two, the Jewish and Arab staff stayed to cover him. These past few days, when two interns got called up from the reserves, the entire Arab and Jewish staff worked extra to cover them. Then, when the doctor ordered food for breaking the fast, he asked the Jews on the team if he could order them something to eat too. As they broke their fast, the Jewish staff kept working. Through the night, the entire team worked in full cooperation with smiles and laughter and good humor.

I know everyone has resentments, anger, opinions. And a solution, if there is one, isn’t simple and will require concessions from each side.

But – and call me naive – a night like this encouraged me, let me dream that one day what matters will be the fact that we are above all human beings, and somehow, maybe we can even build something beautiful and positive here together.

– Tal Kessler, intern, Hebrew University of Jerusalem (translated from the Hebrew by ZShB)

Myths bloom among mistakes.
A voyage of secrets:
along the routes of truth
you hear real screams.

Put down your pencil. People are dying
on the artists’ street.
What’s the point of rhyme
when your body doesn’t know what’s worse:

instant fire, or aimlessness
in endless hallways.
The poetic license expires.

Put down your pencil. You manage
instant sympathy.
You feel in your entrails
the hand of annihilation.

A missile eliminates
A bomb shatters you.

You are now expert in possible demises
The end of a straw-packed trunk of dreams

What’s life like
in deaths developments?