Iowa Writes
SHIMON ADAF Icarus Remembers translated by BECKA MARA MCKAY
1. In this place Was it ever autumn here? Seven wicked birds gaunt as pins stitch sky to asphalt, gnawing on the light's last crumb. Inside the trees, the rising stops like love. Some of the heart's great silences entered me, a terrible trembling in this place. 2. June is becoming Is there one hour when children are not forced to adolescence? One minute when the city is barred from destruction, like stars beneath the soldier's boot of dawn? One moment? I have more time than I want. A block of light gripped through the walls of breathing nights, breathing days, wonderful siege of vanishing ages.
1. In this place Was it ever autumn here? Seven wicked birds gaunt as pins stitch sky to asphalt, gnawing on the light's last crumb. Inside the trees, the rising stops like love. Some of the heart's great silences entered me, a terrible trembling in this place. 2. June is becoming Is there one hour when children are not forced to adolescence? One minute when the city is barred from destruction, like stars beneath the soldier's boot of dawn? One moment? I have more time than I want. A block of light gripped through the walls of breathing nights, breathing days, wonderful siege of vanishing ages. I have more than it seems. Sometimes, even now, burning blindness of the streets. June a name I won't utter again, June, June the whole world rings with June, complaining rasp of warbler wings determined murmur, like flames, of dandelions as in another city the groaning sea appears, as I've realized since I was a boy a moment before this day a single chance, twice missed to drown. 3. A barrage Have I fallen? The air's shackles echo the chrysanthemums' journey— quick and bitter— to their ending, like first sex: always awkward and hesitant the flesh slower than a dream, more opaque than glass.
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About Iowa Writes
Since 2006, Iowa Writes has featured the work of Iowa-identified writers (whether they have Iowa roots or live here now) and work published by Iowa journals and publishers on The Daily Palette. Iowa Writes features poetry, fiction, or nonfiction twice a week on the Palette.
In November of 2008, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designated Iowa City, Iowa, the world's third City of Literature, making the community part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network.
Iowa City has joined Edinburgh, Scotland and Melbourne, Australia as UNESCO Cities of Literature.
Find out more about submitting by contacting iowa-writes@uiowa.edu
SHIMON ADAF Shimon Adaf is an Israeli poet, translator, essayist and guitarist. In 2003, he participated in the University of Iowa's International Writing Program. Becka Mara McKay was born in Clinton, Iowa. She is currently working on a PhD in comparative literature at the University of Iowa. "Icarus Remembers" first appeared in the premier issue (Fall 2003) of eXchanges, the University of Iowa's literary e-journal devoted to translations both into and out of the English language. eXchanges Journal of Literary Translation
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This page was first displayed on July 22, 2006
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