FRAYED LIGHT
WESLEYAN POETRY
Yonatan Berg
FRAYED LIGHT
TRANSLATED BY JOANNA CHEN
Wesleyan University Press
Middletown, Connecticut
Wesleyan University Press
Middletown CT 06459
© 2019 text by Yonatan Berg
© 2019 English translation by Joanna Chen
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Designed and typeset in Merope by Eric M. Brooks
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
available upon request
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-8195-7912-6
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8195-7913-3
Ebook ISBN: 978-0-8195-7914-0
FRONT COVER ILLUSTRATION:
Anselm Kiefer. Velimir Chlebnikov, 2004 (detail)
30 paintings: oil, emulsion, acrylic, lead and mixed media on canvas
18 paintings: 75 × 130 inches (190.5 × 330 cm) each,
12 paintings: 75 × 110 inches (190.5 × 280 cm) each
Hall Collection, Courtesy of the Hall Art Foundation
Photo: Stephen White, © Anselm Kiefer.
5 4 3 2 1
FOR
GEULA &
MAYA PAZ
CONTENTS
| Part I | HANDS THAT ONCE HELD MANNA | 1 |
| Letter to the Reader | 3 |
| Unity | 5 |
| Particular Timing | 6 |
| The End of Naïveté | 8 |
| Map | 10 |
| Settlement | 11 |
| Ramallah through the Window of a Bus | 13 |
| Returning | 15 |
| Friday Market | 17 |
| Distance | 18 |
| Part II | DUST RISING FROM THE BLOW | 21 |
| Through the Eyes of Ramallah | 23 |
| The Mothers | 24 |
| After a Night in the Alley of Worshippers | 25 |
| Occupation of the Land | 26 |
| The Fighter Speaks | 27 |
| Jenin | 28 |
| Remembrance | 29 |
| Positive Identification | 30 |
| Hebron | 31 |
| Post-Trauma | 32 |
| After the War | 33 |
| Part III | AN ISAAC MOMENT | 35 |
| Improvisation | 37 |
| Odessa | 39 |
| A Late Landscape | 41 |
| Visitation | 43 |
| Father | 44 |
| Psalms | 45 |
| To My Mother | 47 |
| Part IV | WATER PIERCES ITSELF | 49 |
| Adam and Eve | 51 |
| Cain | 52 |
| Abel | 53 |
| Noah | 54 |
| Abraham | 55 |
| Sarah Expels Hagar |