On: Yitzhak Meir, יש נבו בשמים - שירים (There is Nebo in the Heavens - Poems), Carmel Publishing House, Jerusalem 2021
I hold in my hands and in my soul the final book of poems by the poet, author, playwright, thinker, and publicist,
Disclosure: For many years, Yitzhak Meir used to send me poems and essays, which he called "Vignettes" (gems), for publication on my blog. And now, alas, I tell about the appearance of his last poetry, which is stored within the pages of his book ״יש נבו בשמים״.
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The launch celebration for Yitzhak Meir's book: Among the Evenings 2014 |
The face of the book is the face of Janus. It simultaneously looks to the 'here' in Israel of his maturity and to the 'there' in Europe of his childhood; to the 'here' in life on earth and to the 'there' concealed in its demise. Death is the riddle of all riddles of human existence. And Meir often ponders it in his poems. Time, he writes, is completely indifferent to man: "WHETHER HE IS A SINNER OR A PROPHET, / OR A KING OR AN INDENTURED SERVANT... TIME IS A GOLEM WITHOUT A SOUL..." (And therefore, p. 7). And death is "THAT DARKNESS WHICH COMES WITH 'LET THERE BE LIGHT' OF GENESIS" (In the Cemetery There Are No Altars, p. 12).
The terrors of the Holocaust, which Meir experienced in his childhood, accompanied him all his life. In the winter of his life he lamented: "I AM A GRANDFATHER WHO HAD NO GRANDFATHERS, / A SON WHO WAS NO GRANDCHILD" (Grandchildren, p. 41). And with the lament come the difficult questions about the Creator of the World. "WHAT DOES HE WANT?," he asks in the poem of the same name. Like Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) in the "Song of Times" of Chapter 3, he brings pairs of opposites piled one upon the other. But Meir, unlike Kohelet, attaches question marks to them: "DOES HE WANT US TO LIVE, / DOES HE WANT US TO DIE? / DOES HE WANT US TO REMEMBER, / DOES HE WANT US TO FORGET?" and so on and so forth until the despairing declaration, "I WILL NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT HE WANTS FROM ME" (What Does He Want, p. 10).
Meir was an observant Jew who did not believe that human prayer was heard by God, and yet he prayed to Him. He did not believe that the Messiah was destined to bring redemption to the world, "AND YET I WILL WAIT FOR HIM EVERY DAY / LIKE FOR GOOD NEWS THAT HOLDS HOPE" (He Delays, p. 75).
Despite all this, Meir remained optimistic and his poems are pervaded by his pure faith in the good and the beautiful. He has poems about good people, about moments of grace, and poems for toddlers about animals, giants, and monsters, which contain a good lesson for his young listeners. This is the case in the ballad of the pure lily: The forces of destruction plot against it, but without success, and Meir tells the toddler in a rhythmic rhyme: "YOU WERE BORN A WONDER, SO SHALL YOU BE, / OH, DO NOT FEAR EVIL, / SO SHALL YOU BLOSSOM AND SO SHALL YOU LIVE / A LILY IN GLORY" (Ballad for a Pure Lily, p. 116).
Yitzhak Meir had, and has, a unique voice, and he expresses it in a rich and layered Hebrew language. His poems deal with the fundamental values of human and Jewish existence: truth and justice, faith and hope, life and death, pain and happiness. And there is no doubt that his last book of poems is a valuable addition to the Jewish and universal bookshelf.
אין תגובות:
הוסף רשומת תגובה
תודה רבה על תגובתך. היא תפורסם אחרי אישורה.