Rami Saari
In cheap hotels toilets and showers are at the end of the hall.
The loves climb up the sides of the beds,
hang from the shabby curtain hems.
And outside, train stations or a huge maple,
of which each leaf is a leaf of life, and rain smells
soaked with longing rise and mix with the dim halls.
There inside, far from the sky and close to the earth,
you move far from the earth and get close to the sky,
touch, naked, full, others and yourself.
That’s how it is in cheap hotels:
you drink another glass and smoke,
you pass through rooms sick with cancer, and love them.
Translated from Hebrew by Vivian Eden, The 4th International Poets’ Festival, Jerusalem, 1997
FINNISH POETRY translated by Saari to Hebrew
FINNISH PROSE translated by Saari to Hebrew
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