Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on September 24, 2014

A Slender Promise

Esther Ettinger

Again You give us a year anew with the scents of honey, cinnamon, cloves and a few yellowing leaves on a silvery poplar.

Again You give us a year anew. Hands we knew this past year how weary their expression now and only a slender promise is kept in fingers of poplar or pine.

Again You give us. a new year. What is forgiven, what is shriven the pain in its rocking cradle on the wings of a poplar and a new, fragrant rejoicing.

The scents of honey and cinnamon the beating of wings and delight and a slender promise. How many hues between green and green You bring us anew in leaves of poplar or pine.

From Yarok Efshari (Possible Green, M. Neumann, Tcherikover, 1981). This translation from Hebrew by Vivian Eden was first published in Print in Haaretz Books Supplement for September, 2010.

Reviewing the past year and looking ahead with mixed weariness and hope, this poem develops around perceptions of time. The first stanza relates to the constant and the cyclical in the culinary year and in nature, the second seems to look at the past of an aging individual approaching death, the third, in forgiven, shriven, pain and birth, offers a complex sense of the possibly better future that follows suffering and the fourth is once again cyclical in a nuanced acceptance How many hues between green and green -- of the slender, variegated and resigned hope for a better year, every year, again.

Writing (in Hebrew) in Poetryplace, poet and Talmud scholar Admiel Kosman commented on this poem from the first of the five volumes of poetry Esther Ettinger has published: It is in fact a prayer. Such a limpid prayer that if the generation were worthy it would certainly have added it into the old High Holiday prayer book And in the manner of true prayers the speaker has a specific countenance, so much so that even on the first reading of the poem it is immediately evident that we have here a very feminine work.

"The speaker addresses God but she does not speak of huge things, nor does she pester the Creator with the burning political questions on the agenda; rather she addresses Him with images taken from everyday domestic life: the scents of cinnamon and cloves, hands whose touch becomes weary, a rocking cradle, the fragrance of honey.

Read the original:

Poem of the Week / Again You give us a new year

Category: Talmud
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