On Summer Nights by Joey Ng
On summer nights the heat is oppressive,
Turning softest sheets into instruments
Of pain, shrink wrap clinging to sticky limbs.
There is no cool spot on the pillow I’m
Afraid; the air conditioning is a joke,
This is human conditioning at best.
In the day I walk out of the front door
And an embraced with cruel humidity,
Enveloping and all-encompassing,
In sinister charades with the damned heat.
Mind you this is on the 46th floor,
High enough to enjoy occasional
Breezes, and where I’m still in the shade.
After a long drop down the concrete shaft,
I walk out under great sails of frost glass,
Subjugating myself to the unbridled
Glare of the contemptuous midday sun.
My clothing suddenly transformed into
Activated heating pads roasting my
Skin in their unrelenting leaden grip.
Never before had I so despised the
Color black, sopping up the suns hot rays;
Even my own head of hair betrayed me!
And so we endured; climbing temple steps
Guarded by swarms of gnawing mosquitoes
Nipping our ankles despite the thick smoke;
Traversing through the huddled black tents of the
Wet markets, with livers and knuckles on
Hooks, and tanks of live sea turtles and eels.
When the rain comes it appears en masse,
Relentlessly battering the tin roofs
And prompting old ladies to take our their
Umbrellas; but even occasional
Umbrellas to the face do not disturb
The welcome respite from the
boorish sun.
A
Letter of Recommendation
BY YEHUDA AMICHAI 1924–2000
TRANSLATED BY CHANA BLOCH AND STEPHEN MITCHELL
On summer nights I sleep naked
in Jerusalem. My bed
stands on the brink of a deep valley
without rolling down into it.
In the daytime I walk around with the
Ten
Commandments on my lips
like an old tune someone hums to
himself.
Oh touch me, touch me, good woman!
That’s not a scar you feel under my
shirt, that’s
a letter of recommendation, folded up
tight,
from my father:
“All the same, he’s a good boy, and
full of love.”
I remember my father waking me for
early prayers.
He would do it by gently stroking my
forehead, not
by tearing away the blanket.
Since then I love him even more.
And as his reward, may he be wakened
gently and with love
on the Day of the Resurrection.
Yehuda
Amichai, “Letter of Recommendation” from Selected Poetry of Yehuda
Amichai, published by Harper & Row. Copyright © 1986 by Yehuda Amichai.
Reprinted by permission of Hana Amichai.
Source: The Selected Poetry of Yehuda
Amichai (Harper & Row, 1986)
No comments:
Post a Comment