Realization

By YEHUDIT BEN-ZVI HELLER

If I forget you Jerusalem, may my right hand wither away. . .
If I do not remember you . . .

—Psalms 137:5-6

To write in Jerusalem
in a garden
with a wind that comes from the mountain
under a canopy of grapevines  
sun everywhere outside
light and shade within
and the sounds
from the quarry and from the street—
the quiet
within the promise
that everything continues

and the time—
is a gust occasionally changing direction,
it is the fact of the large white stone over there,
it is this garden wafting yellow roses,
it is the invitation of the wooden bench near the fence
its face and its back engraved with vows—

and I
a clock-hand now.
Co-translated by the poet and Stephen Clingman

Yehudit Ben-Zvi Heller is the author of Ha’isha Beme’il Sagol (The Woman in the Purple Coat), Kan Gam Bakayitz Hageshem Yored (Here, Even in the Summer It Rains), and Mehalekhet al Khut shel Mayim (Pacing on a Thread of Water).

Stephen Clingman is Professor of English at the Universitiy of Massachusetts. His most recent book is The Grammar of Identity: Transnational Fiction and the Nature of the Boundary.

Click here to purchase Issue 01

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

Realization

Related Posts

Image of a tomato seedling

Talks with the Besieged: Documentary Poetry from Occupied Ukraine  

ALEX AVERBUCH
Russians are already in Starobilsk / what nonsense / Dmytrovka and Zhukivka – who is there? / half a hundred bears went past in the / direction of Oleksiivka / write more clearly / what’s the situation in Novoaidar? / the bridge by café Natalie got blown up / according to unconfirmed reports

A Tour of America

MORIEL ROTHMAN-ZECHER
This afternoon I am well, thank you. / Walking down Main Street in Danville, KY. / The heavy wind so sensuous. / Last night I fell- / ated four different men back in / Philadelphia season lush and slippery / with time and leaves. / Keep your eyes to yourself, yid. / As a kid, I pledged only to engage / in onanism on special holidays.

cover for "True Mistakes" by Lena Moses-Schmitt

Giving the Poem a Body: Megan Pinto interviews Lena Moses-Schmitt

LENA MOSES-SCHMITT
I think sometimes movement can be used to show how thought is made manifest outside the body. And also just more generally: when you leave the house, when you are walking, your thoughts change because your environment changes, and your body is changing. Moving is a way of your consciousness interacting with the world.