Poem of the Week

I love the contemplation and meditation of this poem.

It’s one to read again and again. A C Jacobs was a Scottish poet. He was born in Glasgow in 1937 and died in Madrid in 1994. Jacobs was Jewish. He wrote in Yiddish and English, and translated Hebrew. Jacobs grew up in a traditional Jewish family of Lithuanian immigrants.

Now I have forgotten all
The cities of my youth,
And you in one of them.

Through puddles of rainwater
You still dance for me, barefoot,
Though you must be dead.

How I rushed galloping
Out of my distant childhood
To reach the white palace of age
That is huge and empty.

I can’t see back
To the start of my journey,
Or back to you,
Or myself as I was.

The path of days
From a distance
Continues to move
From nowhere to nowhere,
Without me.

© Translation: 1996, Estate of A.C. Jacobs
From: A.C. Jacobs: Collected Poems and Selected Translations
Publisher: Menard Press, London, 1996