What Shall We Say To Whom
              To Anton Shammas

What shall we say to whom
about people, about peoples,
about ourselves?
Where shall we be—
where now,
and where were we?
What shall we say to whom—
you with what,
and I with whom?

Look closely at the language of mirrors:
look far off—
behold
how the ancestor’s knife
fixes its sharp eyes
upon our eyes.
Look how they appear from afar—
old people, women, and children
in great anger
and in great delight
distancing the gods
from above us.

What shall our Father in heaven say
and our father in the earth
if there is no miracle
and if fire does not burn?
Will we suffice to see
with our own eyes
the number of stars in whose multitudes
will be our descendants?

Oh, how hard waiting in the night
and how hard in the day!
Which is the language of loneliness
of artists, images of man?
Which is the poetry,
the art,
which is the best silence that,
like the cry of Abel from the blood,
will be able to explain in truth
what I shall say to whom
in this perfect moment?

Translation by Karen Alkalay-Gut

Previously published in the Jerusalem Review