Shtume Shprakh (Mute Language)
Shtume Shprakh (Mute Language)
(originally in sonnet form)
I looked around — and saw that half
of my years are fading on the dirt road;
that over my life, there closes,
from my burial shroud, the first pale fold.
So I doubled up like a swallow,
that no longer finds her nest under the roof.
From youth I separated in mute language —
as a cow that accompanies her calf to the
slaughterer’s knife.
And old age starts to gnash with wrinkles,
The “Here lays hiddens” are embedded deep in the
skin of my countenance,
And pushes to the grave, and steeply accelerates
my fast decline toward there, where hair and whip
silence screech and hand-wave, where between walls
of silent grave rest legs and arms.
— Translated by Itzik Gottesman
Jeremiah Hescheles passed away October 16, 2010. Read a tribute to him here.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
