Rachel Bluwstein: My Dead (From Hebrew)

Rachel Bluwstein was born in Viatka in Russia and began life as a Russian poet. While on a detour from a trip to Italy to study art at university there, she visited the Land of Israel and fell in love with it, eventually deciding to remain there as a Zionist pioneer. She switched from writing Russian to writing in Hebrew, and worked as a farm laborer in Rehovot and Kinneret. Eventually she settled in Kibbutz Degania but was expelled when she was found to be suffering from tuberculosis, of which she eventually died in a sanatorium at the age of 41 after wandering for years around Tel Aviv on her own. 

My Dead
By Rachel Bluwstein
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

"The dead alone do not die"
-Jacob Katsenelenbogen, British Hebrew author

They alone are left me, they are with me still,
In whom death's sharp knife has nothing left to kill.

At the turn of highways, when the sun is low,
They come round in silence, going where I go.

Ours is a true pact, a tie no time can sever.
Only what I've lost is what I keep forever.

The Original:

מתי
רחל

רק המתים לא ימותו
י.ש.ק – 

הֵם בִּלְבַד נוֹתְרוּ לִי, רַק בָּהֶם בִּלְבַד 

לֹא יִנְעַץ הַמָּוֶת סַכִּינוֹ הַחַד. 

בְּמִפְנֵה הַדֶּרֶךְ, בַּעֲרֹב הַיּוֹם 

יַקִּיפוּנִי חֶרֶשׁ, יְלַוּוּנִי דֹּם. 

בְּרִית אֱמֶת הִיא לָנוּ, קֶשֶׁר לֹא נִפְרָד 

רַק אֲשֶׁר אָבַד לִי – קִנְיָנִי לָעַד.