Poem

Esther Ettinger

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Original language

ELISHA

A bed and a table and a chair and a lamp
You said
And I said Elisha.
A bed and a table and a chair and a lamp you said
So essential and precise I said
And how superfluous all the rest.

A bed and a table and a chair and a lamp
How suddenly my blood ran dry
And I was white as the room,
As the tears.
A bed and a table and a chair and a lamp
Touched me like the very clarity of heaven
Touched the bluest chord.

You said nothing Elisha
Nor did you lean over me.
A bed and a table and a chair and a lamp
And how superfluous all the rest.

© Translation: 2012, Vivian Eden

ELISHA

© 1986, HaKibbutz Hameuchad
From: Before the Music
Publisher: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, Tel Aviv

Esther Ettinger

Esther Ettinger

(Mandatory Palestine, 1941)

Esther Ettinger’s work, an editor has remarked, “is infused with her own religious sensibility, drawing on associations from the world of Bible, Midrash, traditional liturgy and Talmud”. As may be seen here in the article ‘A Great Woman’, Admiel Kosman’s analysis of Ettinger’s poem ‘Elisha’, she is able to tell an “utterly new story” about the relations between women and men by drawing on a cry...

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ELISHA

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HISTORY, Part II

Esther Ettinger

THE SADNESS CAGE

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THEN I BROUGHT YOU

Esther Ettinger

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ELISHA

A bed and a table and a chair and a lamp
You said
And I said Elisha.
A bed and a table and a chair and a lamp you said
So essential and precise I said
And how superfluous all the rest.

A bed and a table and a chair and a lamp
How suddenly my blood ran dry
And I was white as the room,
As the tears.
A bed and a table and a chair and a lamp
Touched me like the very clarity of heaven
Touched the bluest chord.

You said nothing Elisha
Nor did you lean over me.
A bed and a table and a chair and a lamp
And how superfluous all the rest.

© 2012, Vivian Eden
From: Before the Music

ELISHA

A bed and a table and a chair and a lamp
You said
And I said Elisha.
A bed and a table and a chair and a lamp you said
So essential and precise I said
And how superfluous all the rest.

A bed and a table and a chair and a lamp
How suddenly my blood ran dry
And I was white as the room,
As the tears.
A bed and a table and a chair and a lamp
Touched me like the very clarity of heaven
Touched the bluest chord.

You said nothing Elisha
Nor did you lean over me.
A bed and a table and a chair and a lamp
And how superfluous all the rest.

© 2012, Vivian Eden

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