Rococo and Other Worlds
Page 4
and survey the mine to its far ends
and in a deserted corner
tunnel up
The tunnel shall be dug
right underneath
Where a river flows
I want a river
I am the one who sold his river
to buy a bridge
and wished to subsist
on the toll thereof
But no one ever crossed the riverless bridge
I sold the bridge
and bought a boat
but a riverless boat got no fare
I sold the boat
and bought a strong net
But the riverless net was cast in vain
I sold the net
and bought a parasol
And sold shade to travelers over the riverless land
By slow degrees
the travelers stopped coming
One day when
the shade of the sun fell short of my parasol’s
I sold the parasol
and bought some bread
In any trade this is the last commerce
After a night
or after some nights
when nothing was left of the bread
I found an employ
I found the employ in the clay-mine
I Was Not Given Life in Such Plenitude
I was not given life in such plenitude
My rivers always reached me through the adversary’s ranks
I always drank others’ leftover dregs
I had to leave a season empty for the rains
The one who mentioned me in his will
never went barefoot in the rains
I do not know whether
he’s the same
with him in her arms whose mother begged mercy of horsemen
and all her living days
who kept turning her face from the horse’s steaming nostrils
I do not know whether
he’s the same
whose mother had bound him in the cradle
From my mother’s arms
and my cradle I would continually fall
Because I was born in a well
which never saw water
and began living in a house
Made with the broken rafters of a boat
I made a boat of reeds
and rowed it with stone oars
On the desolate shore of her city
I sowed a crop
and harvested one
The ivory moon
stands guard on lilies
Her jars of wax and honey she guards
Who is to tell
if the ivory moon in my sky as well she hadn’t discovered
like the North Star she did for me
and had the old canal dug
I know
how her father
transforms from a trinket-peddler into a tradesman
how
in the ballroom on my way to ask her for a dance I
join the queue before charity-givers
blowing on the horn
Though
I am the one
on wet steps who
is for blocking the sun’s way —
even on the day
when those who see fire turn to stone
To the vat if the grapes are transferred from the vine
Her valleys are not sapped
Their wool not shorn
Say to her that
To some irate god a prisoner was sacrificed
And
It was the time
When mothers throw their first-born
in front of racing chariots
that I was brought into a burnt city
Admirable are the cities
in the name of girls founded, that are burnt in the name of gods
Admirable are the girls
in hands sticking out of ripped graves
who lay the first pick of the fruits
If poetry could save love
With my poetry I’d have joined the two ends of the sea
But with the pardon in my hand
the functionaries of her god
are demolishing my sanctuary
Could this sea be my exile?
That would assure me
So long as I shall remain on its shores
I will exist as son of man
Who knows when that ship would sink anchor
whose skipper would light a fire for me
Who knows when
the patron goddess of this city
shall grant me her blessing
in that I did not make the ranks
who marked one lone night in her caravanserais
Without supplication when
an apple begets fragrance
And a serpent, venom
without anathema
With some burnt metropolis’ stones when
a new city is being founded
To my land may I return
This sea shall retreat
and inundate the townships
In the tradition of the seas
Only one woman would survive in her city —
that would be her
And one eunuch would survive in her city —
that could be anyone
Perhaps
her heart
of any mulberry tree is bereft
My heart though
is a silkworm
I have rid my identity of this worm
And along with it
I creep
“The one not with me
now stands against me”
If Someone Would Remember Me
The winter is here
And so is the proclamation to provide prisoners with woolen
blankets
The nights have changed,
their length, their breadth and their weight
But every night I dream
of being held slipping the fence
During the change in weather
In the time that escapes measurement
I read a poem
My brother wrote it as he left for the front
From where he was not returned alive
But I intend—being more conscientious than he —
to live the full term of my life
I realize that
The machines are dry
That dogs are going without rations
I realize that
Snow and the clouds are most innocent
And mountains
Most strong
I realize that
Those who live in the mountains
Are most poor
That winters make them further destitute
Nothing much in rains could be written on the walls
But now that winter’s come
If someone would remember me —
Like the girl
reading my poems who breaks into tears —
Something regarding my freedom could be written on the walls
I realize that
My poems shall remain under hearing
I realize that
to bail my heart —
prisoner of a wall and floor far colder than these —
nobody would come
I realize that
Before everyone gets his woolen blanket
the winter would have passed
What the Sea Said to You
“What did the sea tell you?”
The prosecution lawyer asks you
and you break out in tears
“Your Honor! The question is irrelevant!”
The defense objects, wiping your tears
The court overrules the objection
and your tears
The tears are put away in the record room
and you in your cell
This city lies below the sea-level
These courts below the city’s
and the cells of the accused on trial
still further down
In your cell someone hands you a silk yarn
From appearance to appearance you spin a shawl
Unraveling it
after the court is adjourned
“How did you come into possession of this yarn?”
the superintendent of prisons asks you
“A man brought this yarn
tied to his feet
To slay a monster
To find his way out of the labyrinthine pass”
“Whereabouts is that man now?”
You are ducked in cold water and asked
“The man has lost his way!”
That was what the sea had told you
If They Could Learn
If they could learn
the way to kill us
They harass life
bribe death,
and blindfold it
They send us gifts of scimitars
hoping
they we would waste ourselves
In the zoo, they
keep the netting in the lion’s enclosure vulnerable
And the day we visit
take the lion off its rations
When the moon’s not broken in fragments
They invite us to visit an isle
And the paper guaranteeing our lives there
In the boat they mislay
If they could learn
That they are poor assassins
They would break out in a sweat
and be deprived of their job
They dream of our dying
and burn all books of interpretations
They make vaults in our name
and bury their booty within
Even learning
of the way to kill us
They could hardly kill us
To Live Another Day
On a far-away shore
On a ship made of scrap
The boiler explodes
The Second Engineer dies the same day
The Third Engineer, the next
And I
The Fourth Engineer
Die on the third
No First Engineers are assigned
to second-hand ships
Or else
I’d have lived another day
If I Do Not Return
I snare blind cheetahs
colored fish
flying clouds
Blind cheetahs are snared
in traps dug with dull pickaxes
colored fish
in silk-strung nets
and flying clouds
with magnets
This is my well
This, my oven
and this, my grave
I have dug them all
The one who must cut his fetters himself
Must needs grow his own file
I must part my sea myself
My boat I shall myself obtain
The painted boat that is drying on a shore or
stopped in a cave or
imprisoned in a tree or
is nowhere
But I have a seed
called my heart
I have a little land
called love
I shall grow a tree of my heart
One day
Of that I shall make a boat
And set sail
If I do not return
Put my colored fish in my well
my blind cheetahs
in my oven
and my flying clouds
in my grave
That I have made deep
The Slaughter of Snow-Birds
This is the story of the slaughter of snow-birds
But I shall begin it from your body
Your body was wild barley
That was sold, robbed or ravaged
The dress woven of ibex wool and cedar fiber
I wore the day I took oath —
on the rawhide shield and the magnetic-ring in your finger —
of life
In cupped mirrors
was an image of variegated sands
“It’s me!”
you said
and the mirrors began to cloud
Your supplication in the world’s most ancient tongue
was received
Both as a song and a lie
I only wish you had not kindled your body so
Preceding God’s Day of Fire
was the Day of our Union
At harvest time of the quick-growing crop
the images of an alien god
were polluting waters
When I relinquished a dream
and saw a part of my life
coalescing in water
The cemetery gates
were painted red with vermilion
And the way further up was strewn
with common pearls
and fish-hooks made of bone
Other than your body I had no net
to rescue the sinking life
I said to you
Give me two locks of your hair
and help mother weave them into a bow-string
After your refusal
begins the tale of my woes
Which I shall begin from the nails and eye-lashes of the
basket-weaving girls
who were obliged during a protracted famine
to kill the snow-birds in their baskets
Inclination
Money does not buy death
Death yields itself
Under a droplet of poison
and dark stairs
In quest of death
We wander with those
Whose scaffolds have
no noose to offer us
We search for death in towns
where iron does not rust
Look for it in a cheetah’s talons
that have been removed
We buy a place to die
under the shade of a tree
by a monolith
or
in a fickle heart
But we cannot be interred on a bridge
Death does not bar one’s way
I do not know why
At the gates of the execution grounds
I was withheld
I do not know how
The dagger auctioneer shall treat me
Why did I make the final bid
When I had
no money to make it good
Perhaps I could borrow from death
A hundred bars of gold
or
Half-a-world
Perhaps I could ask of death
my child
whom a girl is destroying in her womb
into another’s womb
to deliver
However
by that time
the shades of night fall on caged beasts
at the far end of the passageway
I am inclined
that I be unfaithful to death
I am inclined
that I tell you
Locked in that dream is my death
That you did not relate
I am inclined
that the dream you bore
I repeat before you
and
fall dead
The Heart of a Poet
Where bounds of love are marked ended
Over the closed door
Regarding the full moon
I made the invocation owed to a rising moon
You chained my heart
And I began to bark
If you so wish
with such a delicate chain
you could tie to the marked tree
a broken branch
that the timber merchant would fell this season
The chained heart
starts to lick your feet
and you said
This dog’s reverted
Just as in a tale
a blind man
, upon restoration of his sight
had spurned his dog
If you so wish
I could recite to you the poem
that I read
When I used to speak
And was unaware
how many doors away
the gnashing of my teeth could be heard
The poet had said
“My heart is a hound
I am setting it after your scent
You were unfaithful to me
You eloped with another man
My heart will mangle that man’s genitals
and your calf in his jaw
drag you back
to me.” *
A poet’s heart is a hound
And the heart of a chained man
A chained dog
This dog has reverted
It has swallowed its chain
Perhaps your fingers too
That are cold as stone
And unfaithful like this chain
that could tether any dog
You called the one who cures beasts
And into his eyes, smiling
Decided my fate for me
On the bounds of love, ended
not you
perhaps, somebody else had writ
Whose script
is locked in my heart
like the secret
at which I first learned
to bark
* Yehuda Amichai: A Dog after Love
The Dirge of a Rabid Dog
As a laborer
I carried a sack of poison,
from the railway station to the godown
My back was forever stained blue
As a gentleman
I had my back painted white
In the capacity of a farmer
I ploughed an acre of land
My back forever became crooked
As a gentleman
having my spine removed
I had my back straightened
As a teacher
I was made from chalk
A gentleman
from blackboard
As a sexton
I was made from a corpse