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Poems by Ada Aharoni

POEMS BY ADA AHARONI

Cosmic Woman

They tell us
you were first born
in warm ocean womb
caressed by sun fingers -
daughter perhaps
of the stormy love
of two unruly atoms in love
maddened by the solitude
of eternal rounds
in the steppes of times

And your children,
lively descendants
of their stellar nucleus mother
dropped from the sky
in depths of ocean belly,
born of green and brown seaweed
and the laughs and cries
of a blue bacteria

Cosmic woman,
when you chose earth
as home for your vast roots
at the beginning
of the great human family,
it was for life --
not for death.
Cosmic woman,
you, who were born of the nucleus,
from deadly nuclear mushroom
Save your children
SAVE YOUR CHILDREN


Peace Is A Woman and a Mother

How do you know
peace is a woman?
I know, for
I met her yesterday
on my winding way
to the world's fare.
She had such a sorrowful face
just like a golden flower faded
before her prime.

I asked her why
she was so sad?
She told me her baby
was killed in Auschwitz,
her daughter in Hiroshima
and her sons in Vietnam,
Ireland, Israel, Lebanon,
Bosnia, Rwanda and Chechnya.

All the rest of her children, she said,
are on the nuclear
black-list of the dead ,
all the rest, unless
the whole world understands --
that peace is a woman

A thousand candles then lit
in her starry eyes, and I saw --
Peace is indeed a pregnant woman,
Peace is a mother.

Fred er en kvinne og en mor
Innsendt 17.12.2004 22:19 av Lars Chr. Sande
Dear Ms. Suter:
I have read about your wishes, and upon your request I have translated PEACE IS A WOMAN AND A MOTHER by Ada Aharoni into Norwegian language.
With my best wishes for the High Season – And a most Peaceful New Year.
Sincerely yours,
Lars Chr. Sande, Author

Fred er en kvinne og en mor

Hvordan kan du vite
At freden er en kvinne?
Jeg vet for visst,
Fordi jeg møtte henne i går
På min krokede vei
Til verdens markedsplass.
Hun hadde et slikt sørgmodig ansikt
Lik en gylden famlet blomst
Før den visner

Jeg spurte henne hvorfor
Hun var så trist?
Hun fortalte at hennes barn
Var drept i Auschwitz,
Hennes datter i Hiroshima,
Og hennes sønner i Vietnam,
Irland, Israel, Palestina, Libanon,
Pakistan og India,
Bosnia, Rwanda og Tsjetsjenia

Alle de andre av hennes barn, fortalte hun
Sto på den kjernefysiske drapsliste
Med mindre hele verden forstår --
At freden er en kvinne.
Tusen lys vil da skinne
I hennes funklende øyne, og da så jeg –
Freden er i høyeste grad en gravid kvinne,
Freden er en mor.
Av Ada Aharoni © Gjendiktet til norsk av Lars Chr. Sande, 17.12.2004


You Cannot Bomb Me Anymore

Listen, little big man,
you cannot bomb me
anymore
because I don't allow you
to bomb me, nor choke
nor rape me anymore,
for I have my own strength now
and my own creative
peace business now

With this woman's mind
this woman's body
this woman's heart -
we don't allow you
to bomb us anymore
for our sisters in Norway
have shown us the way
and now -
you cannot, cannot, bomb us
anymore.

For it was
the grandmother
who ate the big bad wolf
and not the other way round --

so now
we do not allow you
to bomb us, bomb us,
ANYMORE.


Eve's Defence

You didn't have to accept
That shiny juicy apple
Did you Adam dear?

Please remove those
Musty fig leaves
From your memory and ears
And remember Adam dear,
You were created
From mere earth,
Whereas I was sculpted
From a much finer substance
Finer than ivory
Finer than gold

In the rush of your
Heart's blood
In the throbbing of your temples
Remember Adam dear -
I was created
From pure human bone

Your strong rib-bone
Became me - Eve
Mother of Life

Always remember
Dearest Adam
Free, independent Eve
Is - You.
*The Chinese translation of this poem won an award. It was published in the bilingual Chinese-English volume “Chosen Poems By Ada Aharoni” (Hong Kong, Milkway Publications, 2003)


I Want to Kill You War

I want to kill you war, forever,
not like a phoenix, that always comes back
I want to kill you war
and I don't know how
and I don't know why
all the people of the world
don't join hands
to kill you war --
you the greatest killer
of them all

The governors of the world
Go on feeding your fat belly
With fresh soldiers
And nuclear arms,
With blurring eyes
They only know how to hang
The murderers of the one or the two
But not you,
You the greatest murderer of them all.

After the carnage the priest said
"we are all responsible."
After the carnage the Sheikh said
"we all remain brothers."
After the carnage the Rabbi said
"we can stop it if we choose."
The priest and the sheikh and the Rabbi
Raise up their hands and look up to the sky

The peace marchers
Take hold of the slab of marble
On which is inscribed "we want to live not die"
And carry it away under the whizzing bullets
Like a corpse, still warm, still alive.

A Green Week

A week like fresh mint,
a green week spreading
its fragrance to the roots
of being

"Have a green week!"
My father used to bless us
on Saturday nights in Cairo,
when he came back from the "Gates of Heaven"
the grand synagogue in Adli street

"Have a green year"
he beamed,
brandishing a fresh, fragrant mint branch
over our keen curly heads -
but don't keep just to yourselves,
give it back
to the world
fully blossoming.

Who will give me
a green week
now that he's gone?
Now that the Gates of Heaven
are shut?

Only peace,
Only a fragrant mint peace.


Myopic Scientist

With green, curious eyes like legend woods
before burning, sweeping like sky rockets,
you were created for exploring and building,
for love and science and joy
on peaceful green earth -
not for providing means
for destroying our lives, our children, our hopes,
with nuclear bombs and radiation

Dear scientist, don't let the war mongers
steal your research, your unaware souls,
your creation, your bubbling myopic brains.
All our voices radiate in fear
all our violins sing the impending requiem
brewed in your stupendous high-tech labs.
Dear scientist, let our wings flap freely
in fresh, clean breeze in the spring and in the fall
before we all fall into the hellish slumber
of a nuclear winter, from which there is no return.
Dear scientist, don't allow the war mongers
to gobble up your inventions to fatten their stomachs
for star wars and earth wars
or for any, any pitiful war.


Mothers You Know
"We can best help you to prevent war not by repeating your words and
following your methods, but by finding new words and creating new methods."
Virginia Woolf - Three Guineas

Mothers you know, a long time ago
have been wisely decreed
by diverse human creeds and needs -
goddesses of peace-in-the-home,
lavishly giving life, love and healing
through their wombs and life-blood

And they have been quite successful
those cosy peace-in-the-home mothers,
closely guarding us with their wisdom
their tender words and watchful eyes.
Surely safer than in a Nuclear War
or in a new World War, or just a tiny war -
so what about making mothers
the guardians of peace on earth?
Surely we wouldn't be so much worse?
And they are so available those mothers -
you can even find them in enemy land...

Look at the terrible mess they have
made of our blue planet, mother,
you are the only one who can save it now,
the only one who really knows
how to protect your fearful children
weeping over their drugged ailing world,
the only one who can heal it now, mother
cradling it in your warm, loving arms.


Mamica

You knew Rousseau's "Emile"
Instinctively by heart,
Let us roam barefoot
In golden fields of home,
Sleep with open windows wide

Gave us all you had
With full two hands
Of bedstead copper angels,
Sometimes you forgot to eat
But never to feed us.
Whatever we did or said
Was a diamond mine -
Your children were your little gods.

Even when I left you and France
For a country I loved,
You were not hurt nor angry,
Gave your daughter to the kibbutz
With a smile followed by a tear.

Today we worship you in return,
Like a queen emerging
From Paris metro's belly,
To Bat-Galim shore,
As in Alexandria of yore,
Mother, mamica,
Standing smiling on a shell
Crowned by love


Teddy Bears for Guns

My man of the year
Is the wonderful, wise one
Who sat himself in the midst
Of the West with a huge box
Of chubby Teddy Bears
On New Year's Day,
Attracting an endless
Queue of cheering kids -
Holding guns

He playfully showed
With a smile and a wink
And a Teddy Bear hug -
It could be the beginning
Of a honey-laden decade
In a brave new world

By wisely, joyfully trading
Guns
For Teddy Bears.


Mimosa Equality

I wait for the day
Blossoming as a mimosa
When half the world's presidents
Will be women
With caring arms
Enlacing every cry
And the sun will shine
On all mortals
with equal golden rays
in every green field,
every printed book
every human look.

Amputation

To leave you now
Would be an amputation -
I would survive
But there would be
Less
Of me


The More Interesting Life

Come closer sisters
hear the man
and what he sang about us

At twelve, a sharp bayonet fear
jabbing through my ribs
tickled my mind:
You are a male,
you will have to go to war,
you may be killed.
Shrieking shells
and giant mushrooms flying
filled my blazing nightfalls.

I looked at the lively girls, envy nibbling,
they will not go to war,
they will not be killed.

But suddenly a flash -
a vision of kitchen sinks
drying of dishes with feminine hair,
a life of soiled diapers . . .

The gun externalized,
I held it with firm fist
and nodded reassured -
But I shall have
the more interesting life.

That's it sisters, that's what he sang,
what he sang about us,
What do we do now with what he sang,
What he sang about us?

Grandmother and the Wolf
Dedicated to Ebba Haslund
my sister from Norway

She looked at me with wise
bluebell eyes
and told me the brothers Grimm
had it all wrong,
they had it all wrong, you see,
for it was the grandmother
who gobbled up the big bad wolf
and not the other way round.

They had it all wrong,
they were too grim,
those brothers Grimm

They had it all wrong,
for grandmothers you see
are very strong.


A Jewish Woman's Prayer

Bless you Oh Lord
For having made me a woman,
For if you had made me a man
I would have had to pray -
"Bless you Oh Lord for not having
made me a woman."


If a White Horse from Jerusalem

If a white horse from Jerusalem,
bearing a message from the land of peace
strides so valiantly in the early dawn hours
of my Haifa street,
as if it were the ocean
as if it were the sky -
then all is possible…

Perhaps, he has come
with a magic wand
to make all chains vanish,
and to make you fly with me

Perhaps, before my hair falls
Before my teeth clatter,
before my breath whistles
and I suffocate in nuclear fumes

Perhaps, he will lift us
on his white wings
and raise the world
to year 2000 beyond wars…

For if a white horse
from the city of global peace,
strides so valiantly
in my own street - as if it were the ocean,
as if were the sky
Then all is possible...

Posted by Evelin at May 29, 2005 03:17 AM
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