By Natan Alterman
Translated by Baila Eisen Teitelbaum
Because you came upon me like a storm, I will strum you forever
In vain will I build a wall to keep you out, in vain will I place doors!
My desire is for you and your garden is for me.
And for me – my body has become dizzy, my hands are lost!
In the Books only you are the sin and the judge.
Sudden, forever; my eyes are struck by you,
Time battles in the streets, bleeding raspberry sunsets.
Bind me into silent sheaves.
Don’t implore to those who retreat from coming close.
I will be alone, a wanderer in your lands.
My prayer doesn’t ask for a thing;
I have one prayer, and it says: Here – for you!
Until the ends of sorrow, until the staring fountains of night,
In the iron streets, empty and long,
My God commanded me to carry for your children –
From my immense destitution – sweet almonds and raisins.
It is good that our heart is still entrapped by your hands,
Don’t have pity on it, don’t let it flee in its exhaustion.
Don’t put it down to rest, to fall dark like a room
Where the stars remain outside.
There the moon is burning like a chef’s kiss,
There a damp firmament thunders its cough,
There a sycamore will drop me a leaf like a handkerchief,
And I will bow and lift it up.
And I know that to the voice of the drum,
In merchant cities deafened and pained,
One day I will fall again with a wounded head to pluck
This smile of ours from between the chariot wheels.
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