Dov Bahat – Three Poems

The Angel of Creation

 

It strikes at my head from within:

A divine creature competing with its inventor.

It is never victorious, but sometimes

is almost equal. We meet

in the cold or the heat, when it

explodes in front of me, breaks into a space

where there are no boundaries, in which it creates

new worlds, which distance themselves

from me faster and faster.

 

And then the universe changes. There is almost

no present. In the past was the flood,

after that confusion, after that order,

the work of human hands. That is,

not perfect. Resembling chaos.

But filled to the brim with hope.

 

A Minority in Europe

 

Only a statistical minority in Europe

still enjoys artwork describing

Jews using the blood of

a Christian child at Passover.

For the statistical majority this question is of no interest.

 

Only a statistical minority

headed by Ernest Bevin

continued humiliating Jews after the war.

The statistical majority of the Labour Party

continued referring to Israel by the name: Palestine.

 

Only a statistical minority

censures the leader of Iran

for calling for the destruction of Israel.

The statistical majority ignores this

and continues to sell him arms.

 

Only a statistical minority supplied Swedish steel

to the Nazi war machine.

The statistical majority in our times,

for the meantime, wants peace

and supports Muslim methods

for turning Israel into a country of all its citizens

and for rekindling the story about the blood of the Christian child.

 

A Young Smile

 

Lightning lights up the world.

Intense thunder shakes up

heavens. A new sun

appears, and the sea erupts.

 

String instruments tremble,

keyboards move,

melodies are stretched out.

A sonata makes its way into the world.

 

A harmonic deviation

begets a wholeness

that contains the unrest

of an endless melody.

 

She and he ate from the

Tree of Knowledge, and a river erupts,

a river of lava, of molten basalt

encircles a snarled olive tree.

 

A young smile kindles the face of

Leonardo da Vinci.

 

Translated by Donna Bossin