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Mameloshn: Yiddish Poems about Nature, #2
Barnett Zumoff
May 4, 2014
The Sun and I, by Rohl Fishman
Translated by Barnett Zumoff
I am sunned through
and sunned out
and finished with sunning.
Open me up,
and from my innards
will spurt
the hot core of sun.
I ingest so much sun
that I laugh and radiate back to the sun
burning hot signals.
Every corner of me is lit up,
but I am not afraid.
Full of sun,
it’s all the same to me
whether I shine
or am shined upon!
DI ZUN UN IKH
Ikh bin durkhgezunt
un oysgezunt
un opgezunt.
Pral mikh oyf,
vet fun mayn ineveynik
aroysshisn
der heyser zunkern.
Ikh shling-ayn azoy fil zun
ikh lakh un gli-tsurik der zun
zudike signaln.
Ale mayne vinklekh in dem likht,
nor kh’hob nit moyre.
Iz mir alts eyns
tsi ikh shtral
tsi ikh ver bashtralt!
Rokhl Fishman (1935-1984) was born in Philadelphia and died at 49 in Israel, to which she had immigrated at 19. In 1978 she won the Itzik Manger Prize for Yiddish Literature.
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