by Chana Bloch
for the raindrops, for the dust in summer,
and for bomb fragments too. Your belly is slack,
not like the tight flat skin of a drum: the flabbiness
of the third generation. Your grandfather, the pioneer,
drained the swamps. Now the swamps have their revenge.
You’re filled with a madness that pulls people down,
that seethes in a fury of colors.
What are you going to do now? You’ll collect loves
like stamps. You’ve got doubles and no one
will trade with you. And you’ve got damaged ones.
Your mother’s curse broods at your side like a strange bird.
You resemble that curse.
Your room is empty. And each night your bed
is made up again. That’s true damnation
for a bed: to have no one sleeping in it,
not a wrinkle, not a stain, like the cursed
summer sky.
A Man Like That on a Bald Mountain in Jerusalem
A man like that on a bald mountain in Jerusalem:
a scream pries his mouth open, a wind
tears at the skin of his cheeks and reins him in,
like a bit in an animal’s mouth.
This is his language of love: “Be fruitful and multiply—
a sticky business,
like candy in a child’s fingers. It draws flies.
Or like a congealed tube of shaving cream, split and half-empty.”
And these are his love-threats: “On your back! You! With all
your hands and feet and your trembling antennae!
Just you wait, I’ll shove it into you
till your grandchildren’s children.”
And she answers back: “They’ll bite you in there,
deep inside me. They’ll gnaw you to bits,
those last descendants.”
“But a man is not a horse,” said the old shoemaker
and worked on my stiff new shoes
till they were soft. And suddenly
I had to cry
from all that love poured out over me.
When a Man’s Far Away from His Country
When a man’s far away from his country for a long time,
his language becomes more precise, more pure,
like precise summer clouds against a blue background,
clouds that don’t ever rain.
That’s how people who used to be lovers
still speak the language of love sometimes—
sterile, emptied of everything, unchanging,
not arousing any response.
But I, who have stayed here, dirty my mouth
and my lips and tongue. In my words
is the souls garbage, the trash of lust,
and dust and sweat. In this dry land even the water I drink
between screams and mumblings of desire
is urine recycled back to me
through a complicated pipework.
The Eve of Rosh Hashanah
The eve of Rosh Hashanah. At the house that’s being built,
a man makes a vow: not to do anything wrong in it,
only to love.
Sins that were green last spring
dried out over the summer. Now they’re whispering.
So I washed my body and clipped my fingernails,
the last good deed a man can do for himself
while he’s still alive.
What is man? In the daytime he untangles into words
what night turns into a heavy coil.
What do we do to one another—
a son to his father, a father to his son?
And between him and death there’s nothing
but a wall of words
like a battery of agitated lawyers.
And whoever uses people as handles or as rungs of a ladder
will soon find himself hugging a stick of wood
and holding a severed hand and wiping his tears
with a potsherd.
I’ve Already Been Weaned
I’ve already been weaned from the curse of Adam, the First Man.
The fiery revolving sword is a long way off,
glinting in the sun like a propeller.
I already like the taste of salty sweat
on my bread, mixed with dust and death.
But the soul I was given
is still like a tongue that
remembers sweet tastes between the teeth.
And now I’m the Second Man and already
they’re driving me out of the Garden of the Great Curse
where I managed fine after Eden.
Under my feet a small cave is growing,
perfectly fitted to the shape of my body.
I’m a man of shelter: the Third Man.
In the Garden, at the White Table
In the garden, at the white table,
two dead men were sitting in the midday heat.
A branch stirred above them. One of them pointed out
things that have never been.
The other spoke of a great love
with a special device to keep it functioning
even after death.
They were, if one may say so, a cool
and pleasant phenomenon
on that hot dry day, without sweat
and without a sound. And only
when they got up to go
did I hear them, like the ringing of porcelain
when it’s cleared off the table.
From the Book of Esther I Filtered the Sediment
From the Book of Esther I filtered the sediment
of vulgar joy, and from the Book of Jeremiah
the howl of pain in the guts. And from
the Song of Songs the endless
search for love, and from Genesis the dreams
and Cain, and from Ecclesiastes
the despair, and from the Book of Job: Job.
And with what was left, I pasted myself a new Bible.
Now I live censored and pasted and limited and in peace.
A woman asked me last night on the dark street
how another woman was
who’d already died. Before her time—and not
in anyone else’s time either.
Out of a great weariness I answered,
“She’s fine, she’s fine.”
So I Went Down to the Ancient Harbor
So I went down to the ancient harbor: human actions
bring the sea closer to the shore, but other actions
push it back. How should the sea know
what it is they want,
which pier holds tight like love
and which pier lets go.
In the shallow water lies a Roman column.
But this isn’t its final resting place. Even if
they carry it off and put it in a museum
with a little plaque telling what it is, even that won’t be
its final resting place: it will go on falling
through floors and strata and other ages.
But now a wind in the tamarisks
fans a last red glow on the faces of those who sit here
like the embers of a dying campfire. After this, night
and whiteness.
The salt eats everything and I eat salt
till it eats me too.
And whatever was given to me is taken away
and given again, and what was thirsty has drunk its fill
and what drank its fill has long since rested in death.
Now the Lifeguards Have All Gone Home
Now the lifeguards have all gone home. The bay
is closed and what’s left of the sunlight
is reflected in a piece of broken glass,
as an entire life in the shattered eye of the dying.
A board licked clean is saved from the fate
of becoming furniture.
Half an apple a
nd half a footprint in the sand
are trying to be some whole new thing together,
and a box turning black
resembles a man who’s asleep or dead.
Even God stopped here and didn’t come closer
to the truth. The mistake that occurs once only
and the single right action
both bring a man peace of mind.
The balance pans have been overturned: now good and evil
are pouring out slowly into a tranquil world.
In the last light, near the rock pool, a few young people
are still warming themselves with the feelings
I once had in this place.
A green stone in the water
seems to be dancing in the ripples with a dead fish,
and a girl’s face emerges from diving,
her wet eyelashes
like the rays of a sun resurrected for the night.
Near the Wall of a House
Near the wall of a house painted
to look like stone,
I saw visions of God.
A sleepless night that gives others a headache
gave me flowers
opening beautifully inside my brain.
And he who was lost like a dog
will be found like a human being
and brought back home again.
Love is not the last room: there are others
after it, the whole length of the corridor
that has no end.
You Can Rely on Him
Joy has no parents. No joy ever
learns from the one before, and it dies without heirs.
But sorrow has a long tradition,
handed down from eye to eye, from heart to heart.
What did I learn from my father? To cry fully, to laugh out loud
and to pray three times a day.
And what did I learn from my mother? To close my mouth and my collar,
my closet, my dream, my suitcase, to put everything
back in its place and to pray
three times a day.
Now I’ve recovered from that lesson. The hair of my head
is cropped all the way around, like a soldier’s in the Second World War,
so my ears hold up not only
my skull, but the entire sky.
And now they’re saying about me: “You can rely on him.”
So that’s what I’ve come to! I’ve sunk that low!
Only those who really love me
know better.
You Mustn’t Show Weakness
You mustn’t show weakness
and you’ve got to have a tan.
But sometimes I feel like the thin veils
of Jewish women who faint
at weddings and on Yom Kippur.
You mustn’t show weakness
and you’ve got to make a list
of all the things you can load
in a baby carriage without a baby.
This is the way things stand now:
if I pull out the stopper
after pampering myself in the bath,
I’m afraid that all of Jerusalem, and with it the whole world,
will drain out into the huge darkness.
In the daytime I lay traps for my memories
and at night I work in the Balaam Mills,
turning curse into blessing and blessing into curse.
And don’t ever show weakness.
Sometimes I come crashing down inside myself
without anyone noticing. I’m like an ambulance
on two legs, hauling the patient
inside me to Last Aid
with the wailing cry of a siren,
and people think it’s ordinary speech.
Lost Objects
From announcements in the paper and on bulletin boards
I find out about things that have gotten lost.
That’s how I know what people owned
and what they love.
Once my head sank down, tired, on my hairy chest
and I found the smell of my father there
again, after many years.
My memories are like a man
who’s forbidden to return to Czechoslovakia
or who’s afraid to return to Chile.
Sometimes I see once again
the white vaulted room
with the telegram
on the table.
Forgetting Someone
Forgetting someone is like
forgetting to turn off the light in the back yard
so it stays lit all the next day.
But then it’s the light
that makes you remember.
“The Rustle of History’s Wings,” as They Used to Say Then
Not far from the railroad tracks, near the fickle post office,
I saw a ceramic plaque on an old house with the name of
the son of a man whose girlfriend I took away
years ago: she left him for me
and his son was born to another woman and didn’t know
about any of this.
Those were days of great love and great destiny:
the British imposed a curfew on the city and locked us up
for a sweet togetherness in our room,
guarded by well-armed soldiers.
For five shillings I changed the Jewish name of my ancestors
to a proud Hebrew name that matched hers.
That whore ran away to America, married
some spice broker—cinnamon, pepper, cardamom—
and left me alone with my new name and with the war.
‘The rustle of history’s wings,” as they used to say then,
which almost finished me off in battle,
blew gently over her face in her safe address.
And with the wisdom of war, they told me to carry
my first-aid bandage over my heart,
the foolish heart that still loved her
and the wise heart that would forget.
1978 Reunion of Palmach Veterans at Ma’ayan Harod
Here at the foot of Mount Gilboa we met,
mediums and witches,
each with the spirits of his own dead.
There were faces that only days later
exploded in our memory with the blinding light
of a great recognition. But then it was too late
to go back and say: So it was you.
And there were closed faces, like the jammed mailboxes
of people who’ve been away from home for a long time:
the weeping unwept, the laughter unlaughed,
unspoken words.
And there was a path, toward evening, between the orchards,
along the line of cypresses. But we didn’t take it
into the fragrant darkness that brings back memories
and makes you forget.
Like guests who linger at the door when the party is over,
we lingered thirty years and more,
unwilling to leave and unable to return,
the hosts already lying asleep in their darkness.
Goodbye all of you, the living and the dead together.
Even a flag at half-mast flutters happily enough
when the wind blows. Even longing is a bunch of sweet grapes
from which wine is pressed for feast and celebration.
And you, my few friends, go now, each of you,
go lead your flocks of memories
to pastures
where there is no remembrance.
An Eternal Window
In a garden I once heard
a song or an ancient blessing.
And above the dark trees
a window is always lit, in memory
of the face that looked out of it,
and that face too
was in memory of another
lit window.
There Are Candles That Remember
/> There are candles that remember for a full twenty-four hours,
that’s what the label says. And candles that remember
for eight hours, and eternal candles
that guarantee a man will be remembered by his children.
I’m older than most of the houses in this country, and most of its forests,
which are taller than I am. But I’m still the child I was,
carrying a bowl full of precious liquid from place to place
as in a dream, careful not to spill a drop,
afraid I’ll be punished, and hoping for a kiss when I arrive.
Some of my father’s friends are still living in the city,
scattered about like antiquities without a plaque or an explanation.
Late in my life I had a daughter who will be twenty-two
in the year 2000. Her name
is Emanuella, which means “May God be with us!”
My soul is experienced and built like mountain terraces
against erosion. I’m a holdfast,
a go-between, a buckle-man.
On the Day My Daughter Was Born No One Died
On the day my daughter was born not a single person
died in the hospital, and at the entrance gate
the sign said: “Today kohanim are permitted to enter.”
And it was the longest day of the year.
In my great joy
I drove with my friend to the hills of Sha’ar Ha-Gai.
We saw a bare, sick pine tree, nothing on it but a lot of pine cones. Zvi said trees that are about to die produce more pine cones than healthy trees. And I said to him: That was a poem and you didn’t realize it. Even though you’re a man of the exact sciences, you’ve made a poem. And he answered: And you, though you’re a man of dreams, have made an exact little girl with all the exact instruments for her life.
All These Make a Dance Rhythm
When a man grows older, his life becomes less dependent
on the rhythms of time and its seasons. Darkness sometimes
falls right in the middle of an embrace
of two people at a window; or summer comes to an end
during a love affair, while the love goes on
into autumn; or a man dies suddenly in the middle of speaking
and his words remain there on either side; or the same rain
falls on the one who says goodbye and goes
