Jayseth Guberman

Sorry, dass dies in Englisch, aber mein Deutsch ist nicht sehr gut.-JG

What I write can best be described by the words of Haim Nachman Bialik (1873-1934) in his poem "Lo Zachiti Ba'or Min Hahefker":

I didn't find light by accident

I didn't inherit it.

I hewed it from the flint of my being

I quarried it from my heart.

One spark hides in the rock of my heart,

a small spark, all mine.

I didn't borrow it from anyone, or steal it.

It is my very own.

The hammer of grief strikes my heart

rock of my strength.

The spark flashes, flies to my eye,

from my eye to my poem

and from my poem to your heart

to kindle fire and disappear.

And I, marrow and blood,

am consumed in the flame.

translated by Ruth Nevo in "Voices Within the Ark" ed. by Schwartz & Rudolph, NY/Avon, 1980, p. 55.

I am presently reading Nili Scharf Gold "Yehuda Amichai; The Making of Israel's National Poet" having just finished Alan Furst's "Mission to Paris" and Etgar Keret's "Suddenly A Knock On The Door" (recommend the short story "Guava" from this collection...it's available on the net and very funny).