Within My Heart – Poems of Shlomit Cohen-Assif translated by Mel Rosenberg

In my heart

In my heart

There is another,

And in that heart

There’s yet another.

In the smallest one

There is a dot

Somebody touched it,

It trembled

A lot.

From the book “Kiss in Your Pocket”

A little light

The moon asked the sun

For some light

In the night

And the sun said “All right”.

A star asked the moon

For some light in the night

And the moon said “All right”.

The window requested some light

In the night

And the star said “All right”.

So never be shy

To ask for some light

The tiniest bit

Is a lot in the night!

Bear of Ice and Bear of Fire

The bear of fire and

The bear of ice

Two bears apart

With love in their heart.

The bear of fire

Wrote the bear of ice,

“Why don’t we meet,

It would be paradise.”

The bear of ice

Wrote the bear of fire,

“I can’t wait to see you,

I’m full of desire.”

They finally met on

A roadside somewhere,

They hugged and they kissed,

There was love in the air.

A boy walking by,

Saw them hug in delight,

But when he looked back,

There was no one in sight.

Hee Haw and Haw Hee

When the mare Haw Hee

Sees her stallion Hee Haw

Her look is so shy,

Her stallion is handsome,

And tall as the sky.

When the stallion Hee Haw

Sees the mare Haw Hee

He wonders

“Is anyone as

Lovely as she?”

When the other ones see

Hee Haw and Haw Hee

They whisper to each other

jealously,

“In our shed, everywhere,

There is love in the air!”

Hee Hee!

Haw Hee!

Hee Haw!

Aha!

Dreams and Wings

Fly with your own wings,

And I’ll fly with mine,

Dream all your own dreams

And I will dream mine.

Dreams and wings

Are things we can’t share,

Just like our eyes

And the glasses we wear

Each one of us

Must reach for the sky

With our own wings,

How high we can fly!

How high can you dream?

A day-old butterfly

Asked her big brother,

“With these new wings of mine

How high can I hover?”

Said the big brother

To the new butterfly,

“How high can you dream?

That’s how high you can fly”.

I asked a bird

I asked a bird,

Her suitcase in hand,

Which way she was headed,

And what she had planned. 

“It’s not so clear,

I still don’t know,

Where the dream will lead,

Where the winds will blow.”

There’s a kiss in your pocket

There’s a kiss in your pocket,

I’ve hidden in there.

If you shed a tear

Out of sadness or fear,

If you lose your way

On a rainy day,

If somebody hurts you,

Or just isn’t fair –

There’s a kiss in your pocket,

I’ve hidden it there.

This moon of mine

When my moon’s

Not round,

Nor white,

I don’t fill it with

The dream

I dreamt last night

This moon of mine

Shines brighter still

When there’s just

A little bit to fill.

Together

Come gather round my friends,

On this day of cloudy blue,

And make a giant circle

Of me, and you, and you.

Together we’re a necklace,

Each one of us a bead.

Together we’re a sunflower,

Each one of us a seed.

Together we’re a tree,

With a thousand leaves, that’s true,

And every one of us a leaf,

The leaves are me and you.

So let’s all gather round

On this day of cloudy blue,

And let us ring a thousand bells,

Each chime is me and you.

Each one of us a hole

In a net a mile high,

Each one of us a color

In the rainbow of the sky. 

So come and let’s hold hands

On this day of cloudy blue,

And swear that we’re a giant wheel

Of me, and you, and you.

Teddy T

Teddy T’s my teddy bear

I always hold him near

Teddy T protects me

From the darkness and the fear.

Teddy T is chubby,

He’s as round as round can be,

I know that he’ll look after me

Until I’m twenty-three.

One day I lost my Teddy T

He’s nowhere I can see.

Perhaps he’s on a bus somewhere,

Perhaps he’s up a tree.

Alone within the darkness,

Alone as I could be,

I grew up on that very night

Without my Teddy T.

When I am a sea

When I am a sea

Thoughts of waves come to me

When I am a tree

Many leaves do I see.

When I am the sky

I see clouds rolling by

When I’m just a kid

My mind is a kite

Flying away

In every which way.