Two Ladino Poems from Argentina, by Juan Gelman

The Orphan (Isaac Luria)

what is the matter? why do you
always pursue me as an enemy?/
you set hidden traps for me?/
you catch me in my own snare?/
nail your fever to my flesh?/
my soul dreamed of following you/
in sheltering in the shade of your hand/
still/saved under the shadow
by your hand/but eyes awoke
before the night watch/you call me
nothing and I become nothing/
I/who is destined to the sweetness 
of your words/I am an orphan/
witness how fast I shall sleep in the dust/
you will not find me when you look for me/
who will then throw your bait?/
hooking his palate/
you will push him into his fate?/
if I lay down/I ask
when shall dawn come/
if I rise up/I ask
when shall night arrive/
I hurry time to see you/
exiled from myself/
like the Creator of all creation?

Measures

Grandfather looks at me from
the usual photo, he looks at me
from the depths of Russia and other misfortunes.
From the ghetto he looks at me. They
say he wrote a letter to God to
flood the houses with wheat,
wine and matzah on Passover,
and tied the letter to a bird’s foot
which flew from country to country looking for heaven.
He looks at me with the slow sleepy ears
of someone who mourned terror. Grandfather
never picked me up in his arms. I never
had him, he never
had me. Never
is our agreed word. He wanted
truth to wander through the street
and covered it with a mask
so as to be wanted.
Grandfather must have asked God not
to commit anything into writing or erase it because
things could get worse. The photo
is sick, raising
a cloud of smoke made of arms unable to greet each other,
handcuffing its ancestry,
haunting me like a dog.

Translations from the Spanish