Linda Stern Zisquit is an American-born Israeli poet and translator. She teaches poetry, Hebrew literature and poetry translation at Bar-Ilan University.
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Linda Stern Zisquit
Do their faces disappear
and only bone remain
does the wood prevail
or as the skin and flesh
dissolve, the wood rot too
till hair is woven
in the soil, eyes and organs
eaten, the soul—
what we couldn’t
bury or preserve—
the only whole?
What flows upward
as worms aerate
the ground and seeds
carried by wind or mouths
of birds start reaching
down? Is it warm inside
or cold, silent as memory
or do noises penetrate,
the world-sounds—
orchestras, airplanes,
prayer? If hearing
is the last to go