Dahlia Ravikovitch

Well-known poetess Dahlia Ravikovitch (1936-2005) was born in Ramat Gan, Israel, and after her father's death, was sent to live on a kibbutz. She studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and later worked as a journalist, high school teacher and translator of poetry as well as children's books. She translated, among others, the work of W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot. Ravikovitch published ten books of poetry during her lifetime, three collections of short stories and children's books. She was awarded the Shlonsky Prize (1965), the Brenner Prize (1976), the Bialik Prize (1987), the Prime Minister's Prize twice (1994; 2005) and the Israel Prize (1998). In 2000 she received Honorary Doctorate from the University of Haifa. Her poems have been published abroad in 23 languages.


Three Four Cyclamens
 
Three four white cyclamens
and I have another pot brimming with leaves
that won’t stop reaching for the ceiling
and I have treasures stored away
and I have a small, harmless secret
that seeps into the palm’s vein
and tints my blood a glowing red.
You’ve got a lot on your mind now
you don’t think of me or talk to me,
on top of the world
hovering
like a thin cloud-mingling mist
whose particles scatter a pearl-dust of dawn.
I always knew you’d act this way toward me,
It’s just another story
concealing nothing.
But that mountain that slopes down to the sea
into clear turquoise waters has forgotten you,
that mountain is all mine
not yours. 
                                            Trans. Gabriel Levin