BANIPAL 72
Magazine of Modern Arab Literature
Special Feature: Iraqi Jewish Writers
Eli Amir, Shimon Ballas, Ya'qub Balbul, Ishaq Bar-Moshe, Almog Behar, The Mani brothers, Shalom Darwish, Amira Hess, Sami Michael, Maryam al-Mulla, Samir Naqqash, Haviva Pedaya, David Semah, Anwar Sha'ul, Mati Shemoelof, Ronny Someck, Mona Yahia
Guest Editors: Yehouda Shenhav-Shahrabani and Yuval Evri
ISBN 978-1-913043-28-5
MATI SHEMOELOF
Rachel Hazzaz Z”L
Can't Prostrate Myself at My Grandmother's Grave
Translated from the Hebrew by Eran Edry
In loving memory of Granny Rachel Hazzaz, 22 March 2020, 2 Nissan 5780
The poem's tomb opens, the poem's tomb is sealed,
You want to sing her a farewell poem in Aramaic
The heart's mind bursting with the ferocity of the memory of her laugh
The mind's heart shattered en route to her
And there is nowhere to return, and nowhere to advance in this poem
She stands underground waiting
for thousands of miles' worth of
your tears.
Granny Rachel Hazzaz
A brilliant exile who's rolled into the world sans script
And now you're the one playing around with this exile, but she's gone
Baghdad opens with a suitcase
Bedding she had sewn for her wedding day
are now in your wife's wardrobe in Germany,
the kibbeh that you have every Friday touched by the magic of your childhood
a plume of smoke in your adulthood,
Baghdad is sealed in a case of poetry
which you surrender to your little girl
After the rope had broken and the boat returned hollowed of words
to a beach bereft of seashells, molluscs, and starfish,
your daughter walks alongside you, asking 'Where's Gran?'
You tell her she's gone to heaven,
Your daughter repeats the question: 'Kannst wir Savta sehen ins Himmel?' (can we see Granny in heaven?')
on an empty boat's beach
letter by letter walk by, looking out for your poetry in the clouds
Gran,
We've been looking for you,
Unable to strip the house back to alien walls
Unable to carry on walking ahead, without looking back,
The longing stretches out after us like snails' saliva
The wormwood shrub orphaned of your hand
The pomegranate tree too shedding its fruit for naught
And the cats getting skinnier by the day, and already looking for another gran to care for
Every Friday, you come running out of school, trying not to slip on the barren soil
Turning right, Jaurès St., that's always looking out to the sea, a migrant neighbourhood that hasn't made the papers,
You step onto the path, surrounded by fruit trees, cacti, and herb plants, going past the common washing room
and stepping into your sanctum sanctorum. A small kitchen, a calendar, a photograph of the Maran*, a tight, well-worn tablecloth,
and then comes the question, what kind of kibbeh would you like? This rice-mounted creature appears riding on the back of a spherical spacecraft
You look at the small chair that's ready for Friday night candle lighting, and the cupboard in the storage room, which is where another piece of chocolate will come from at the end of the meal. It's nearly the Sabbath, and this is but a poem, because home is no more, and neither are you, only the words move about the present before hungry eyes.
Your roots don't grow into the land where she was born, Abraham
Your roots grow sideways, climbing upwards, heaven-bound
Shot out like clouds, into the very hearts of longing
Pining does not soothe
Yearning only numbs
The hankering hunkers down your poems entirely
You are more of a land in her heart, in her body, inside the place where she
lets you live in between the breaths of the memory of your Iraqi language,
angry that you have not returned to its embrace
* An honorific title for a leading, influential rabbi in the Jewish Sephardi community.
Mati Shemoelof, “Can’t Prostrate Myself at My Grandmother’s Grave”, translated by Eran Edry, Banipal 72
Originally published in:
Banipal 72: Magazine of Modern Arab Literature – Special Feature: Iraqi Jewish Writers
Poem: “Can’t Prostrate Myself at My Grandmother’s Grave”
Translation from Hebrew: Eran Edry
Guest Editors: Yehouda Shenhav-Shahrabani and Yuval Evri
ISBN: 978-1-913043-28-5
Categories:
Poetry; Iraqi Jewish Writers; Mizrahi Literature; Jewish-Arab Writing; Diaspora; Translation
Tags:
Banipal, Banipal 72, Iraqi Jewish Writers, Iraqi Jewish literature, Iraqi Jews, Jewish-Arab literature, Mizrahi literature, Mizrahi poetry, Hebrew poetry, Arabic literature, Jewish diaspora, Baghdad, Haifa, Berlin, migration, memory, grandmother, Rachel Hazzaz, Eran Edry, Mati Shemoelof