Red clay spun into motion by strange divine fingertips
Illegible meaning swirls too fast to guess
Every moment whirls me from gantz back to nisht
Ever revolving around illegible axioms
Constantly blurring between all and nothing
Yet always rotation perceptibly slows
Every second bringing me closer to an answer
Every moment my meaning becomes clearer
Final rotations can almost be read
Everything to nothing, gain to loss, around, around, around,
Waiting in earnest expectation until--
Nisht.
Author's Note--
The first few verses of this poem were written in Hebrew, but I quickly realized that a) nobody here is likely to know Hebrew and b) I don't know enough words to say everything I want to say, so I translated it to english to finish it. That's why it's worded a bit strangely, and I wanted to point out a couple oddities to help the poem be properly understood. Firstly, the first word(s) of the poem, "red clay", was originally "אדמה" or "adamah", and was meant to reference both the clay traditionally used to make a dreidle(though not red), and the Hebrew word for "human", "אדם" or "adam".
Secondly, two Hebrew words were left untranslated, "gantz" and "nisht", which mean "everything" and "nothing" respectively. I left them as-is because they're two of the faces on the dreidle, which inspired the poem, and I didn't want to lose the reference.
Thank you for reading!
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You're welcome, for reading this was a beautiful piece of work, and I think I could read more.
I like your take on poems I will check out more of you're work, hopefully, you have some new stuff, this was made last month I'm kinda late but aye, as long as you get to the party right?
Also thank you for the author's note that is smart I might have to do that sometimes when I need to explain something that I think can get is understood by people as they try to understand it.
Hey, thank you so much for the review! I'm glad you liked it!
Hi @Elfboy I'm not Jewish, but I've taken some courses in Hebrew!! (including half a course in Hebrew poetry) and would love to see the more Hebrew version too ~ !
Though I love that you decided to maintain some of the Hebrew words in this version.
I like this poem, reflecting on religious-themes and especially around holidays I think is really special. This poem had a lot of Ecclesiastes / Qohelet themes for me. Almost like as everything spins around ultimately it all can seem like nothingness or futile. I like the idea that the speaker seems to be trying to discern their life meaning from the act of discerning the dreidle's meaning. I'd love to see that aspect expand with a bit more reflection on God's impact in that.
Small critique - I wouldn't use "illegible" twice in one short poem, vary the language a bit more. I would also put gantz and nisht in italics if you're going to put it in italics the last time, or just leave them all in normal print so they don't feel remove or like an extension of an author's note.
Overall, this was a quick read but had some depth to it. Thanks for sharing! שָׁלוֹם !
alliyah
Ah thanks alliyah! It's cool to know someone here actually can read Hebrew stuff if I post it, I'll definitely do that sometime! Also oop, thanks for the tip on illegible, I missed that! The first instance of it was in Hebrew ("%u05D1%u05DC%u05EA%u05D9 %u05E7%u05E8%u05D9%u05D0" which more or less means "unknowble how to read"), and I forgot I had already used it haha. Thanks again for the review, I really appreciate it!
...oops, YWS did not take kindly to my alien characters XP
The words transliterated were "bileti quari"
You're welcome!!
Beautifully written poem. I don't know much about the context or cultural importance of the piece but I can see the imagery being created.
I like the way you've explored how meaningless and meaningful life is at the same time!
Thank you so much! I really appreciate the review <3