The poet speaks about his poetry

18 januari 2006 The poems in Edge of Darkness and Bread were written over three decades; many of them appeared in magazines, anthologies and the literary pages of daily newspapers. Many more were written than published and these have been lost, whether by God’s will or human action.

Once, on Monkey Island, on the deck of the ship Judea, anchored in the shark-filled waters of the Nayanga Bay, opposite the forest in whose heart Dr. Albert Schweitzer had built a leper hospital, I arose from my improvised desk. The air stood as the West African air did all those days we were loading logs. Suddenly a cry was heard from aboard a Danish ship anchored nearby: “Sharks! A shark bit the second mate’s leg.” Before the helicopter I had summoned by walkie-talkie arrived to bring him to the hospital, the Danish officer died. And nine of my poems, typed on greenish paper, flew into the air and drowned in the ocean or were swallowed with the fish guts chewed by the sharks.

Another time, in Jerusalem, in a café, when I stood up to accompany my girl outside for a moment, I left a black leather briefcase on the table. When we returned moments later, it was gone. The café owner said, “Stolen, apparently.” Seven poems were inside.

But we are always losing things and ourselves, all our lives.

The poems in this book were written in times of poverty and sickness; while in love; in misery; in despair; in times of joy and during dark nights of loneliness; during hopeful moments; in pain; while dreaming, innocent—

Yellow is the color of summer.You didn’t despair your darkness like afternoonso I said here I’ve come like a scroll written on me:

I. H.


From the poet’s introduction to his Edge of Darkness and Bread Tel Aviv & Jerusalem: Shahal Ahavim, 1994.