Poems about return: a translation of a poem by Yermiye Hesheles

Here’s another poem I am reading this Saturday at Beth Am Synagogue, but this one is a translation from the Yiddish (original here).

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by Yermiye Hesheles

You glimpse once

among time’s leaves:

a pressed flower

fading.

Its kind long ago

extinguished

its perfume

speech

gesture:

bilions of years distant.

If you sense the flower’s

deeper avatar –

it’s no longer silent.

It’s an avatar

of God’s.

And you call out:

Om mani padme Hum!