I've closed your eyes

Running rest-day ...

... and here's a poem by Dan Pagis, who was born in Romania but spent his adult life in Israel.

This translation (from the original Hebrew) is by Stephen Mitchell, from the pictured 1972 selected poems:


Fragments of an Elegy

I've closed your eyes.
I've returned your hands to their place.
The soles of your feet look at me with pity :
I am superfluous.
I find my hands.
What shall I do with my hands?
I tie my tied shoelaces,
button my buttoned coat.

The new cemetery is spacious,
entirely future. Far, near, incessantly,
the cantors are singing.

You are quiet, a little embarrassed :
perhaps the separation will be long.
The nails are growing, slowly, sketching a truce.
The mouth cavity is at peace with its maker.

But now the earth-fists
are knocking on the boards of the trap :
let us in,
let us in.