Three Poems from Israel

Three Poems from Israel Susan Afterman (bio) Translations from the Hebrew A person should fold up his world A person should fold up his worldput his head between his legsand so observe his existence say things of worth things that foresee the futureby becoming roundby lowering his head uniting the edges our rabbis called this the position of prophecyand in this position they would prophesizeend to end mouth to mouth Hallelujah End Page 16 Click for larger view View full resolution Photo by Tim Mossholder/Unsplash.com She walks in her places She walks in her placesfeeling her waychecking animal droppingshere a camel here a gazelle here a donkey the path winds up the slope's ascentthinning out to nothing on the cliffstretching out along the ridgewind rises from the wadi and ravens above the abyss when she passes through the garden ofthe almond trees and rosesdoves startle in the thicket of reedsfourteen doves and the air vibrates with their wings this is her abandoned place until the fig seasonthe breach of hawthorn perfumewounds the hearta knife-cut in rock The cliff on which I'm trapped The cliff on which I'm trappedis about to collapse but a cow stands hereI hold onto her legs and climb back from the edge under her bellybreathing salvation through the legs of a cow I didn't feel the hairinessor the roundness Her cylinder legs their steadinessand their red color saved me from the abyss End Page 17 Susan Afterman Susan Afterman was born in Australia, educated in Melbourne, and has worked as an architect in Australia, England, and Israel. Her first two collections of poetry were written in English, and her last two books were written in Hebrew. Her recent collection is Bird Bones. She lives in Clil, Israel. Linda Stern Zisquit Linda Stern Zisquit has published six collections of poetry and several volumes of translations from Hebrew poetry, including Wild Light: Selected Poems of Yona Wallach, for which she received an NEA Translation Award and was shortlisted for the PEN Translation Award. For many years she was poetry coordinator for the Shaindy Rudoff Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan University. Copyright © 2024 World Literature Today and the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma