Four Poems (translated by Betsy Rosenberg)

Migratory Birds

Waddling through the grass again, the hoopoe
Only a sun spot though.
The bulbul piping pulls me out of sleep, and perches on a branch
Outside my window, there with his bright specs again, the bulbul.

The branch is bare.
Here are the swallows, dark envoys of
Lighthearted childhood
Cleaving the blue, nesting under the eaves, the swallows.
The nest falls apart. No tail fanning this way or that.
Cranes fly over in long processions, cranes, herons.
Storks in a quiet swirl, an updraft and soon
Tiny arrows in the sky. All gone.
Is this the hoopoe, is this the bulbul,
Are these the swallows, the cranes, the storks
Of yesteryear?
...