Rfgreenberg

By Uri Zvi Greenberg (1896-1981)

Translated by Robert Friend

The hour is tired…

The hour is tired as if it were time for bed;

and like a foundling in a white nightshirt only,

I sit and write in the void as if upon a blackboard:

nothing matters, nothing matters.

If the black cat should leap among the platters, lap up

what’s left of the white milk, and overturn the platters,

I’d close my eyes for sleep, I’d sleep forever—

nothing matters, nothing matters.

From Found in Translation: Modern Hebrew Poets, a Bilingual Edition

Selected and with an Introduction by Gabriel Levin.

(The Toby Press, 2006)