Dov Chomsky

 

TO MOM

 

A

 

It's evening, golden carpets 

They extend slowly in silent emotion 

The olive tree in its rough cracks 

Thousands of old inexplicable thoughts 

 

The tired olive tree, without bark and inclined 

Sinks it's roots in the stony earth 

Becomes agitated begging mercy, mercy 

And rises with each awful and wandering wind 

 

I will see you from my cloud, my store this shaken 

In the threshold, shades extend as they would be in a ball. 

The horizon is reddish as flames 

You came closer, even being far 

 

How did you arrive to me? the road is so long 

I remember that you always told me:  

Being baby even walking "on my four" 

Your knew that I would be for you a wild son. 

 

I remember, I felt fear for a very serious father 

That suddenly lights his anger 

Was this my childhood, could I erase it forever? 

Will we never go for a walk together? 

 

Your name murmurs in my drowned voice, 

And I admit that now very little can I tell 

My father prevented me, is forbidden to pamper, 

Because the end is only sadness 

Anger and rage...

 

B

 

When leaving house, a rainy day of autumn 

Your voice prevented me: 

"Cover with a scarf and an overcoat 

G-d will keep  you from catching a cold and fall sick" 

 

Your voice follows me, even behind the door 

I still listen very well to it.... 

When returning home you received me with an anger expression 

That it caresses me smiling 

 

 

And when the sprinkle, the anger, the chaos, finishes  

Will you reprehend me again as before? 

I admit myself: there is not anything better than the melody 

That sprang from your angry voice 

 

How many are the days of terror and fright among our people

Nights of death and scaffold? 

Will you come, mother? You will tell me  

If suddenly you found me?

 

If you came, if you came, in tempests and storms 

Would you return again to reproach your wild son? 

Still I remember your angry and good voice 

This one, your voice I will remember until the end 

 

C

 

The river, the river of my small town 

Invited me to wake up to the dawn 

I prepared the net secretly 

And  hoped the fish to arrive 

 

Toward the river, toward the river I escaped in silence 

As a colorful game the hours passed; 

Wave after wave, and meanwhile the evening arrived 

But fish, I was not able to catch

 

How dark, powerful and deep the forest, 

Wrapped together with it flames and fears 

Perturbed and confused you looked for me, to the lost boy 

The whole day absent of house 

 

But the mischievous boy returned, he didn't lose 

How much you worried then, mother, for him  

Surround me until today the days I enjoyed  

Next to the river in my native town. 

 

The river, who pulled up the secret of papyrus rush? 

How reddened it's waters? How silenced it's laugh! 

Your image, observes me without saying anything 

It walks toward me from far.