Ronny Someck’s ‘Sun Sonnet’

As shvitzing New Yorkers are glued to the weather forecast, tracking the minute movements (and long-awaited departure) of the heat wave, Israeli poet Ronny Someck divines a different sort of a forecast for us in his poem “Sun Sonnet.”
An Iraqi-born poet, Someck is a recipient of the Prime Minister Award and Yehuda Amichai Award, among other honors. His work has been translated into 39 languages, from Arabic to Yiddish, but in truth he himself is a translator par excellence, interpreting the notoriously difficult, rough, laconic and irony-clad Israeli psyche into neat lines of poetry.
However obsessed the country may be with news from the political arena, weather reports are far from moot. Given the perpetual shortage of water and decades of drought, rain and sun are reclaiming the mythic proportions they had thousands of years ago. In this poem, it is as if the sun gradually scorches the poem’s imagery, ripening it into a culminating burst of dry humor, both dark and hilarious.
Read “Sun Sonnet” after the jump:
Sun Sonnet
It will not rain today
and the earth’s lips like
a concubine’s lips
will not be moistened
by a stolen kiss.
Today the sun will come
to caress the feet of hills,
whisper at the tip of
a stalk a lullaby
for sleeping groundsel
and flake rust off
a command sign
on a wall of the
military camp
where my daughter
shines.
Today love will slide
like a banana down the
world’s throat
and its peel discarded
among the stars
will be patched above
my head
like a personal moon
Translated by Vivian Eden
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
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 polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history.
- 3
Opinion Yes, the attack on Gov. Shapiro was antisemitic. Here’s what the left should learn from it
- 4
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Global antisemitism has declined since Oct. 7, Tel Aviv University says
-
Yiddish World VIDEO: Warsaw Ghetto Uprising commemoration highlights women ghetto fighters
-
Music Even the Holocaust could not silence the music of these composers
-
Fast Forward Authorities raid Michigan homes that advocates say belong to pro-Palestinian activists
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.