Leah Goldberg: Pine (From Hebrew)

Note: Pine trees, mind you, are especially versatile and can thrive in snow as well as sand. Russia as well as Israel. Also, note that "rime" can mean "rhyme" as well as a kind of ice.

Pine
By Leah Goldberg
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

Here I will never hear the cuckoo's call.
Here trees will never wear the shtreimel-snow.
Yet here in the pine's shade I can hear all
My childhood, brought to life from long ago.

The needles chiming: Once upon a time
"Home" was the word I gave to snow, not sand,
And the brook-fettering ice- a greenish rime
Of my song's language in a foreign land.

Perhaps the voyaging birds alone who find
Their own route hanging between the sky and earth,
Know how I pine between two lands of birth.

In you I was transplanted, O my pine.
In you I branched into myself and grew
Where disparate landscapes split one root in two.

The Original:

ארנים
לאה גולדברג

כָּאן לֹא אֶשְׁמַע אֶת קוֹל הַקּוּקִיָּה.

כָּאן לֹא יַחְבֹּש הָעֵץ מִצְנֶפֶת שֶׁלֶג,

אֲבָל בְּצֵל הָאֳרָנִים הָאֵלֶּה

כָּל יַלְדוּתִי שֶׁקָמָה לִתְחִיָּה.

צִלְצוּל הַמְּחָטִים: הָיֹה הָיָה_ _ _

אֶקְרָא מוֹלֶדֶת לְמֶרְחַב הַשֶּׁלֶג,

לְקֶרַח יְרַקְרַק כּוֹבֵל הַפֶּלֶג,

לִלְשׁוֹן הַשִּׁיר בְּאֶרֶץ נָכְרִיָה.

אוּלַי רַק צִפֳּרֵי-מַסָּע יוֹדְעוֹת –

כְּשֶׁהֵן תְּלוּיוֹת בֵּין אֶרֶץ וְשָׁמַיִם –

אֶת זֶה הַכְּאֵב שֶׁל שְׁתֵּי הַמוֹלָדוֹת.

אִתְּכֶם אֲנִי נִשְׁתַלְתֵי פַּעֲמַיִם,

אִתְּכֶם אֲנִי צָמַחְתִּי, אֳרָנִים,

וְשָׁרָשַׁי בִּשְׁנֵי נוֹפִים שׁוֹנִים.