Yona Alon: from 'A YEAR'S DIARY'

            translated by Ben Schapiro

not poetry
way

the spirit climbs to the skies
the body rolls down to its demise

make love prevail

Identification Card

I am Yona
my teachers were
my father Yaakov
Yeshayahu Leibowitz
and Yafa my wife
greater than they
nature and pain

24/10/97

Selections from a Diary

I looked for quiet in the garden of silence
and my heart terrified me
and I knew
the garden won't be quiet
as long as there's life in it

21/11/97

late november days
always catch me by surprise anew
when everything seems lost
cold, wind and fog
rain and abysmal darkness
suddenly brilliant sunshine laughs
in spring skies

21/11/97

time stopped moving in the garden of silence
sun's tenderness on my back
in my closed eyes threads of gold
tainted greenish brown;
winter, death, hides
in the cracks and crevices
behind the facade of chirping birds
and the innocent gust of autumn
gathers strength for the last great
            charge

1/12/97

this day
brought one last grace of sunshine
but deciduous leaves fall
in muted silence
and distant ravens
recall
the end

2/12/97

my sixty third birthday approaches
and I begin to empty of my life
like a city whose inhabitants abandon it
slowly disintegrating
by the blind forces of
nature

2/12/97

was I really alive?



and already the end

3/12/97

the golden azure light
goes on fading
and the gray pushes out.
the warmth of a sweet caress
wafts in the cold wind
that carries the foliage
chirping of birds
gives way to cackling crows
darkness everywhere
desolation.

3/12/97

and again azure
like the curious kindness
of a distant love

dripping gold

4/12/97

azure
illusion of summer
like life

4/12/97

the sun fills me slowly
as a pitcher fills one's thirst
my dead, frozen body
wakened by magic touch
all the colors of the rainbow
return to my life

6/12/97

what is happiness?
just a few tiny
sunbeams

6/12/97

cold
an eyeful of gray
big wave clouds close in for the charge
and fog tightens the siege
the soul is wrapped in down
like a kernel in the blackness of the earth
to sleep
to dream a distant spring

8/12/97

an all embracing fog
hides the raindrops
the soul hides in its lair

10/12/97

silent taps
of invisible rain
distant fields of wild grain
reflecting flowers of wonder

10/12/97

To Schubert

bud sprouts in a secret site
somewhere in fields of heart
keep it out of strangers' sight
until the blooms can start

and when it bears its fruit, matures
brings healing to the heart
convey to all this gift of yours
sent from a loving heart

10/12/97

song of a blackbird before dawn
like the caress of a warm flute river
a distant bus
heads for invisible districts of love
hidden in the warm blanket
like in the womb of a mother who is not there
for one last moment of grace
in just a little bit I'll emerge
into the world of cold and hate

12/12/97

skies
light blue and profound
like velvet
like a baby's
crying for joy

12/12/97

the sun and I melted together
into one mold of joy

12/12/97

summer made a surprise visit
like a forgotten love of youth

12/12/97

the light and the warmth
keep receding
garden of silence, my private sanctuary
give me another prayer of summer joy
one last one
before the eternal frost

13/12/97

behind the tall building
a moon in hiding sends forth
a pale silver field of light

13/12/97

deep night

the quiet
hears itself

only inside me, big wheels are moving
bringing news of

what

16/12/97

"in libraries too one can love to death"
            Nathan Alterman

in libraries too one can love to death
and in the gardens wrestle with the angel to the end

20/12/97

if you always face the sky
you connect to serafim secret

28/12/97

nighttime

darkness has
a thousand hues

quiet has
a thousand sounds

3/1/98