Simple Thing


Eli Eliahu

Translated from the Hebrew by Marcela Sulak

 

It’s no simple thing. They are not making clubs
from the olive branches. It’s no simple
thing at all. They are not making walls
from the  discarded stones. None of this is easily understood. A mound
of dust where a house once stood. And from dust we come,
so they say. It’s no simple thing
to walk in another’s shoes. Although sometimes it seems to you
that you really remember, the sheep,
the mosque,
the well.

 

Click HERE to read the Hebrew version of this work in Granta Hebrew


Eli Eliyahu was born in 1969 in Tel Aviv. He works at “Haaretz” newspaper as a copy-editor and also writes on poetry and culture. His collection of poetry: “I and not an angel” (Helicon, 2008) was awarded the Education and Culture Ministry prize for debut books. He has also been awarded the “Matanel” prize and the Prime Minister Prize for literature, and in 2019 he was awarded the Brenner Prize for poetry. His poems have been translated into English, French, Arabic, German and Turkish.

 

Marcela Sulak is the managing editor and a poetry and creative nonfiction editor of The Ilanot Review.

 

 

 

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