one of my favorite Hebrew poets.

[rainolive.livejournal.com]

LULLABY/ Shimon Adaf


There are children in the morning,
They are leaning out for love, they will
Lean that way forever.
Leonard Cohen


Father,
who always misses the target,
consumed by love like a match,
stooped over a book.
Stealthily,
November is poured into the air,
an awkward moon struck between the ribs of the street, droves
of mist trample in the dark.
When he spreads his hands open
on the slippery table,
in his cold and ruined sleep,
it’s hard to believe he crossed the sea and once beheld snow,
in the shrunken homes of Morocco,
toward the end of the forties,
the cradle of time.



© Translation: Gabriel Levin