The Ballad of the Pail

I’m a form out of zinc. I contain
Heavy pellets—the fruit of the dust-sprayed cherry.
Crimson sunsets and dawns they retain.
Now they doze in me, berry on berry.
I’m a form. In the autumn my content are pears,
The lamps of the orchard, the sun’s gleaming rivals,
Stray souls of the bark-clad Republic of Sap
Gathered in aprons as welcome arrivals.

I’m a form.
I’m a body,
A cone out of zinc
Whose content is multiform—free of its form.
Filled with dagger-like carrots or beet to the brink
Or brittle green stalks, without measure or norm.

I’m a form. It’s to man that I owe my birth
And what I am filled with is subject to him.
And when I am free of the flesh of the earth
I am laden with air—full of sky to the brim.

IVAN DRACH

Translated by Dorian Rottenberg