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Go Home Ararat

POETRY APRIL 1, 2009

Ararat

BY DAN PAGIS

As all the survivors of the ark burst ashore

in a happy pandemonium

chattering, roaring, howling for prey

lowing to be fruitful and multiply

while above their heads the rainbow hinted

that there would be no end again--the end came

for the fish without cares who lived

off the catastrophe like slippery swindlers:

now on the face of the stiffening earth

the writhing fins were stranded

and with gaping mouths they drowned in the air.

Translated from the Hebrew by Leon Wieseltier

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