Culture

POEM: First Knowledge

Image by Getty Images

By Harold Schimmel May 1, 2015

Translated from the Hebrew by Ariel Resnikoff and Rivka Weinstock

Kisses to the wall
Kisses to the alphabet that hung there

& the trash-man asks me:
You still haven’t conquered
The alphabet? – No

Still no! First
Knowledge fear of heaven, in the first
Letter, aleph.

Secrets of secrets
In aleph! Kisses to the wall
There in the place where the aleph hung.

From “Shirei Malon Tsion” (“Songs from Hotel Zion”)

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