By Israel Emiot
Translated by Leah Zazulyer
Hour of Sadness
Hour of sadness
rain all the time
everything close
and full of goodbyes;
I am still living,
even though I have given myself
a divorce many times,
yet like a distant planet
I still spin myself around you
driven
by some unknown law;
with so many things,
like Saturn's rings you encircle me,
thus are silent
all the trees and all the branches
rising to the planets.
As Long As We Are Not Alone
In 1961 the American George Smith
discovered that musical sounds
promote the growth of planets.
As long as we are not alone,
as long as we have a partner.
Perhaps a stone also hears*,
we shall rejoice,
we shall rejoice;
there is so much silence in space
between us and God,
only a bird sometimes sings.
What is the worth of a bird
compared to the silence of God?
What worth has the city's faint noise
in the cosmos?
And see, the plants hear,
silently they speak aloud,
perhaps the stone also hears?
We shall rejoice.
We shall rejoice.
* Yiddish saying: "As alone as a stone."
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