I Châvil Schreiben a Poem auf Yiddish
I want to write a poem in Yiddish
and not any poem, but the poem
I am longing to write,
a poem so Yiddish, it would not
be possible to translate,
except from, say, my bubbeâs
Galizianer to my zaydeâs Litvak
and even then it would lose a little something,
though, of course, itâs not the sort of poem
that relies on such trivialities, as,
for example, my knowing how to speak
its languageâthough, who knows?
Maybe I understand it perfectly;
maybe, in Yiddish, things arenât any clearer
than the mumbling of rain on cast-off leaves.âŚ
Being pure poem, pure Yiddish poem,
my Yiddish poem is above such meditations,
as I, were I fluent in Yiddish,
would be above wasting my time
pouring out my heart in Goyish metaphors.
Even Yiddish doesnât have a word
for the greatness of my Yiddish poem,
a poem so exquisite that if Dante could rise from the dead
he would have to rend his clothes in mourning.
Oh, the drabness of his noisy,
futile little paradise
when itâs compared with my Yiddish poem.
His poems? Theyâre everywhere. A dime a dozen.
A photocopier can take them down in no time.
But my Yiddish poem can never be taken down,
not even by a pious scribe
who has fasted an entire year
to be pure enough to write my Yiddish poem,
which existsâdoesnât he realize?â
in no realm at all
unless the dead still manage to dream dreams.
Itâs even a question
whether God Himself
can make out the text of my Yiddish poem.
If He can, He wonât be happy.
Heâll have to retract everything,
to re-create the universe
without banalities like firmament and light
but only out of words extracted
from the stingy tongues of strangers,
smuggled out in letters made of camels,
houses, eyes, to deafen
half a continent with argument
and exegesis, each refinement
purified in fire after
fire, singed almost beyond
recognition, but still
not quite consumed, not even
by the heat of my Yiddish poem.
Views of La Leggenda della Vera Croce
How will I ever get this in a poem,
When all I have to do is type AREZZO
And the name sidles up along a station platform,
The train Iâm riding in begins to slow,
Andâthough I swore I wasnât getting off this timeâ
I know a train comes every hour or so
To wherever Iâm headedâPerugia? Rome?â
And suddenly Iâm rushing off the train,
Depositing my bag, crossing the waiting room,
And striding up the Via Monaco again
As if I couldnât see each fresco perfectly,
Couldnât see them, now, against this screen.âŚ
But in a minute, theyâll array themselves in front of me:
Soldiers, horses, placid ladies, kings,
All patient, in their places, not spinning crazily
Like the first time I saw them: unearthly beings
Breathing luminous pearl-green instead of air,
Horses and ladies-in-waiting flapping wings
Stolen from the eagle on the soldiersâ banner,
Their brocaded sleeves and bridles grazing spinning walls,
Hats twirling, armor flying, coils of hair
Unraveling into whirling manes and tailsâ
And that was before the winged armâs appearance.âŚ
When the Times ran an article about Stendhalâs
Famous nervous breakdown from the art in Florence,
Half a dozen friends sent it to me.
I suppose these tales of mine require forbearance.
Not that I had a breakdown, though I was dizzy,
Closed my eyes, leaned against a wall,
And told myself that there was time to see
Each panelâone by oneâdown to each detail:
Hats, sleeves, daggers, saddles, bits of lace;
I studied every panel: Adamâs Burial,
St. Helenaâs Discovery of the Cross,
Solomon Meeting Sheba, The Annunciation,
The Dream of Constantine, The Torture of Judas,
Whose other name I learned from a machine
Which, with the help of a hundred-lire coin,
Supplies a telephone with information.
I did it for a laugh; I chose Italian.
I thought I heard the torture of the Jew
And was so stunned I played the thing again
(My Italian was, after all, fairly new
And the woman on the tape spoke very quickly
But she did say the torture of the Jew-
In Italian itâs ebreoâquite matter-of-factly)
The torture of the Jew who wouldnât reveal
The location of the true crossâI got it exactlyâ
Put in a lot of coins to catch each syllable
(I also heard the English, which said Judas),
All the while not looking at the rope, the well;
Instead, I chose a saintly womanâs dress,
An angelâs finger pointing to a dream,
A single riveting, incongruous faceâ
What was I supposed to do? They were sublime.
The Inquisition wasnât exactly news
And, while I did keep my eyes off that one frame,
I wasnât about to give up on those frescoes.
In fact, I saw them again, a short while after
And again soon afterâin those heady days,
Trains cost almost nothing and a drifter
Could easily cover quite a bit of Italy,
Though I tended to stay in Tuscany. The light was softer,
Andâprobably not coincidentallyâ
It had a higher density than any other place
Of things that could dazzle inexhaustibly.
And I was insatiable, avaricious
For whatâeven asleepâa person canât see
From a slim back bedroom in a semidetached house
Like every other house in its vicinity
On a site whose inhabitants had been wiped out
To make room for spillover, like my family,
From the very continent I would have dreamed about
If Iâd had even an inkling of the mastery
Of what its subtlest inhabitants had wrought
When they werenât doing away with people like me.âŚ
See how Solomon, listening, leans his head?
How the tired horseman leans against a treeâ
How the guard beside the emperorâs makeshift bed
Canât resist the sorcery of sleepâ
So only we can catch the angelâs finger pointed
At the dreamerâs head, the horseâs sudden leap,
As if straight from that vision, to the battle scene:
Christianityâs triumph over Europe.âŚ
I love the wing, the arm, the dreaming Constantine,
The moonlight casting shadows on the tentâ
It is moonlight, though there is no moonâ
Pale, as always, silvery and slant;
Itâs coming from the angelâs pointing arm
Which I didnât even notice that first momentâ
All I saw was undiluted dreamâ
I didnât really care what it ...