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"Let’s Say" by Avot Yeshurun

Author: 
Avot Yeshurun
Translator: 
Jonatan Tadmor
Published on 
July 04, 2021

Related Essay

Let’s say: gradually, it is as if I divorced them. [i]

I bought a plot of their land, so I could miss it. They lease silver-

ware. They are silverware to lease silverware, they are silverware. They make aware of the wares, they

are a ware. They are silverware wares. They are silverware-aware. They are silverware, beware.

 

More and more

its beauty is in the unsolved,

more and more

I fear

 

solving the secret

of poetry.

More and more better

the beauty of the unsolved.

 

 

3 Tammuz 5748, 18 June 1988

 

 

[i] An early version of this translation was published in the Journal of Modern Jewish Studies: Michael Gluzman, “Avot Yeshurun’s Self-Commentary,” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 2021, DOI: 10.1080/14725886.2020.1863562.

בֹּא נֹאמַר

 

בֹּא נֹאמַר: לְאַט לְאַט זֶה כְּאִלֻּ הִתְגָּרַשְׁתִּי מֵהֶם.

קָנִיתִי לִי מֵהֶם מִגְרָשׁ אֶצְלָם, מָקֹם לְהִתְגַּעְגֵּעַ אֵלָיו. הֵם לְהַשְׂ-

כִּיר כֵּלִים. הֵם כֵּלִים לְהַשְׂכִּיר כֵּלִים, הֵם כֵּלִים, הֵם לְהַזְכִּיר כְּלֵי מַכְשִׁיר, הֵם

מַכְשִׁיר. הֵם כְּלֵי מַכְשִׁיר כֵּלִים. הֵם כֵּלִים לְהַזְכִּיר. הֵם כֵּלִים לְהִזָּכֵר.
 

יֹתֵר וְיֹתֵר

יָפְיוֹ בְּאֵין פֹּעַנְחִים,

יֹתֵר וְיֹתֵר

יָרֵא אֲנִי
 

מִפִּעְנֻחַ סֹד

הַשִּׁירָה.

יֹתֵר וְיֹתֵר יֹתֵר טֹב

יָפְיָהּ בְּאֵין פֹּעַנְחִים.

 

ג תמוז תשמח, 18 יוני 1988[i]

 

[i] Avot Yeshurun, Kol shirav [Collected poems], vol. 4 (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1997), 121. Reprinted with permission from Helit Yeshurun and Hakibbutz Hameuchad—Sifriat Poalim Publishing House.