Thursday 20 October 2016

Agi Mishol: Geese



My math teacher Epstein   
liked to call me to the blackboard.
He said that my head was good only for hats,
and that a bird with brains like mine
would fly backwards.
He sent me to tend the geese.

Now, at a distance of years from his sentence,
when I sit under the palm tree
with my three beautiful geese,
I think that math teacher of mine was farsighted.
He was right,

because nothing makes me happier
than to watch them now
falling upon bread crumbs,
joyful tails wagging,
or freezing for a moment
under beads of water
when I spray them
with a hose,
holding their heads erect,
bodies stretched back
as if remembering faraway lakes.

Since then my math teacher has died,
together with the math problems
I could never solve.
I like hats
and always at evening
when the birds return to the tree
I look for the one flying backwards.


Tr. Lisa Katz. From Bikur Bayit (House call), 2009. Mishol became (temporarily?) known outside Israel for her poems attempting to process terrorism, but many readers may prefer the wry quietude of a poem like this one.

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