In the Time of Cholera
- In the Time of Cholera
Facing one anotherwe turn our backs to the world's calamities.Behind our closed eyes and curtainsboth heat and warerupted at once.The heat will calm down first,but the faint breezewon't bring backthe boys who have been shot,won't cool downthe wrath of the living.Even if it tarries,the fire will come,many waters won't quench etc.*Our arms as wellcan only reach our own bodies:We are a small crowdincited to bite, [End Page 63] to cling to each otherto barricade ourselves in bedwhile in the ozone above usa mocking smilecracks wide open.
Tal Nitzan was born in Jaffa and lives in Tel Aviv. She is a poet, an editor and one of the preeminent translators from Spanish in Israel today. Recipient of the Culture Minister's Prize for Beginning Poets in 2001, Nitzan has published three poetry books: Domestica (2002, rece cipient of the Culture Minister's Prize for First Book), An Ordinary Evening (2006), and Café Soleil Bleu (2007). An ardent peace activist, Nitzan edited the ground-breaking anthology With an Iron Pen: Hebrew Protest Poetry 1984-2004, published in 2005.
Notes
(Song of Solomon, 8:7) "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it"
Originally published in Hebrew, translation by Tal Nitzan, with Vivian Eden [End Page 64]
