Two Poems
By Nimrod Dweck
Translated from Hebrew.
I Had No Origin לא היה לי מוצא
I had no origin until the left appeared.
The past dissolved into the wind,
Only a child remained, future-bound, hope-filled.
“Tell about the injustice, the pain, the burden.”
Not mine— not me— I stayed silent in turmoil.
I had no origin until the right emerged.
No present, just the past, in the preserved
Graveyard grounds,
Plots, stories, poems, and the Kaddish.
“Shame on you, elite, tyrant beyond compare.”
I fell silent, nostalgia turned sour.
No father’s house with its foundations in history,
No grandfather’s home stretched from distant lands,
Just here and now, and the time that drips out.
The origin is in the mountain, the future, in the sea.
I’m an estuary, a delta, time flows through me—
the left bank, the right bank,
Drink from my waters and thrive.
Always a Picture on the Wall
ותמיד על הקיר תמונה
Remember what your grandmother taught you,
The secret of a slice of bread and butter, the mystery of spinach in a pan,
Which she received with love from a neighbor.
Weeding in the garden, the sick pecan tree,
Life always goes on,
And always on the wall, there is a photograph.
Hear what your grandfather didn’t tell you,
A family that was and went, which he left for the sake of land,
Reflected in tears on a gravestone.
An insulin shot from a woman, injustice to a worker is routine,
Life remains life,
And always on the wall, there’s a photograph.
Look at your father’s deeds,
How he pours himself onto the page, his justice for hours
At the table,
Which he chose to dedicate his life to.
The way a pita is eaten, a joke is quietly told,
And life always goes on,
Until he becomes a photograph.
Nimrod Dweck is a Syrian-Jewish author, poet, screenwriter, game designer, and entrepreneur whose family has resided in Israel since the 15th century. In 2019, he published his first book, “The Two Constants”, a fantasy novel about grief and farewells. His stories and poems have been featured in various magazines. In his earlier years, he was a rapper and released several albums with different bands. He currently teaches marketing at Reichman University.