Translated by Reut Ben-Yaakov, with translation editing by Liron Alon. The original Hebrew follows the English translation.
A Rupture
And these were the days of falsehood and the nights of lies. And all
I dreaded has happened, and all that happened—
I dreaded. And I was as a different man living
his life. And I was as a stump
of a tree or a stream deviated.
And the storm did not hit
and the sea did not rise,
nor flood any lands. There are times when
a man destroys his home
with his own two hands.
כריתוּת
וְאֵלֶּה הָיוּ יְמֵי הַשֶּׁקֶר וְלֵילוֹת הַכָּזָב. וְכָל מָה
—שֶׁיָּגֹרְתִּי מִפָּנָיו בָּא. וְכָל מָה שֶׁבָּא
יָגֹרְתִּי מִפָּנָיו. וְהָיִיתִי כְּאִישׁ אַחֵר שֶׁחַי
אֶת חַיָּיו. וְהָיִיתִי כְּגֶדֶם
.עֵץ אוֹ כְּנַחַל שֶׁסָּטָה מֵעֲרוּצָיו
וְלאֹ פָּגְעָה הַסּוּפָה
וְלאֹ עָלָה הַיָּם
עַל גְּדוֹתָיו. לְעִתִּים
מַחְרִיב אָדָם אֶת בֵּיתוֹ
.בְּמוֹ יָדָיו
Eli Eliahu was born in Tel Aviv in 1969 and now lives in Giv’atayim. He majored in Jewish philosophy and Hebrew literature. Eliahu works at Haaretz as a copy editor and also writes on poetry and culture. He has published three collections of poetry: I, and Not an Angel (Helicon, 2008), which was awarded the Education and Culture Ministry Prize for Debut Books; City and Fears (Am Oved, 2012); and Epistle to the Children (Am Oved, 2018). In 2013, Eliahu was awarded the Matanel Prize for Young Jewish Writers. In 2014, he was awarded the Prime Minister Prize for Literature. In 2018, Epistle to the Children received the President’s Wife Award, and in 2019, he won the Brenner Prize.
Reut Ben-Yaakov is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies at Duke University. She is a translator of fiction and poetry, and the editor of Tangier Publishing House’s translated poetry series.