Old Age
I who was a ram in Jerusalem
A young man of lean muscles in Jerusalem
Skipping and lusting on the stairs of Jerusalem,
Now calculate every step every stride
Up toward the love~dens that have forsaken me.
I slide clumsy on the slope
Rolling down with Jerusalem stones,
Clutching like a desparate survivor the memory of my youth:
A forgotten lesson from the classroom
About a cruel and precise law
Of the sloping plane.
translated from the Hebrew by Aura Hammer
©Elisha Porat