{ Leah Goldberg: The Shortest Journey. }

[delga]

The Shortest Journey
by Leah Goldberg (trans. Annie Kantar)

1. Tel Aviv, 1935

The flagpoles on the roofs of homes
were like the masts of Columbus's ship
and each crow that perched on them
conjured another continent.

Travellers' knapsacks walked through the streets
and the language of a foreign land
was thrust like the cold blade of a knife
into the hot desert wind.

How did the air of that small city
find a way to bear
memories of childhood, lovers shed,
rooms emptied somewhere?

Like pictures blackening inside a camera,
clear winter nights were reversed,
with rainy summers across the sea,
and foggy mornings of capital cities.

As the sound of marching behind your back
drums a foreign army's songs,
it seems, as you turn your head to the sea,
your city's church is floating.

2. An Evening in a Café

The city’s in the coloured coat
of awnings over balconies,
clear wine shining in lanterns
and light in the drinks blurring.

Scraps of a squabble and a rush
of chatter, cutlery. High in the sky,
lights have erased from the blackboard
an old accounting of the stars.

Short-tempered and severe,
the sea behind our backs
tracks and charts our beating hearts
in a secret pact with my watch.

Only the very young can grasp
the value and meaning of time,
with its nights gone astray
and all we give away
each moment vainly passing.

And like an incredible nightmare
there across the street, an old
man passes, slowly:
he has no reason to hurry.



3. Rainy Autumn Night and a Clear Morning

Into a dark, opaque night
whose alleys
only the jackals know,
the city was thrown:

dressed in white,
unprotected
from lashes of rain,
the rebuke of thunder,
an old sea’s stolen caress.

Our little city
together with us
and our lives—

but the bright morning opened her prison
and here—

black circles beneath her damp lashes—
white she is, and not fair
without a past or prideful air—
how beautiful was her youth!



4. She Still Had

She still had the scent of the sea,
of shells, orange peels, the warm wind of almost-summer,
and the magic, bewildering grace
that twice entices a dream.

Embraced by water and light, a hundred ripples
held in her a taste of salt, longing—

my insatiable youth, my parched sands,
all my crowns of sadness scorning the kingdom—
and the city, a white island on green waves.



5. Then I Walked Through the World

Then I walked through the world
as though someone adored me.
Laughter unfurled through heaps of stones,
and a wind through fathomless skies.

Then I walked through the world
as though someone dreamed me lovely.

Abysses blossomed across the night
and the sea's mirror painted my face, as though
someone were writing poems about me.

I walked, until I reached an utter stillness within:
there, it seemed, something might begin.



6. The Shortest Journey

The shortest journey is across the years.
The light has not gone out. The house teeters,
a wall bends. And here they stand
together like neighbours,
my night of now, my day of then.
What could they have said: We’re changing, ageing?

The shortest journey is into the past.
Do you remember? A cool sea, two boats touching,
children on a hill have lifted a torch—
Are we ageing? Changing? Know this: until tomorrow,
such long hours await me.

Comments

[noorie.livejournal.com]

since you posted goldberg, i want to share w/you one of my faves by her. well, the first stanza, as i'm too lame & tired to translate the rest :)

You came to me to open my eyes
Your body a glance, ,a window, a mirror
You came like night coming to the owl
To show it all things in the darkness

(from Leah Goldberg's 'Slichot')

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

!!! You are magic! Guess what I was just about to post?

Allow me to go, oh allow me to go / and kneel on the shore of forgiveness.

[noorie.livejournal.com]

haha you have a translation? cool, post, i wonder how mine would compare. you know, she wrote this song to a (married, i think) lover, he must've been quite something.

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

From the first stanza, your translation is superbly close. (Posted!)

Yeah, I read somewhere that it's a song, but I've yet to find the melody. Not that it would help me all that much, as I don't have/can't read the Hebrew :)

[noorie.livejournal.com]

yah, i saw, interesting to see the differnces. looks like they primarily stem from my preference to keep meaning, feel and flow rather than exact syntax when i translate. interesting how the last line in the first stanza changes. in the original, it could have 2 meanings, seeing the things that are in (as in part of) the darkness, and/or seeing in the dark.