Tikkun

Aharon Shabtai
Translated from the Hebrew by Peter Cole

The horror
the calamity
the disgrace,
the rubble of folly
and religion’s stupidities,
the dimness of vision
and violence of despair
won’t be repaired by an officer,
a bomb or a plane,
and not by still more blood.
Only wisdom of the heart could mend it
only the surgeon, the doctor,
the good teacher, the teachers
the medic—an Arab, a Jew—
only the quiet traveler
riding a bicycle,
someone carrying a sandwich
and walking along a street,
someone opening their eyes,
someone who speaks with compassion,
someone listening
someone learning and wise
someone waiting and thinking
someone guiding someone
down a path of kindness, affection,
the painter, the poet,
disciples of peace—
only the gardeners of peace.

October 10, 2023

Feature Date

Series

  • Translation

Selected By

Share This Poem

Print This Poem

Headshot of Aharon Shabtai 2025

Aharon Shabtai was born in 1939 in Tel Aviv and grew up there and on Kibbutz Merhavia. One of the leading poets writing in Hebrew today, he is the author of over twenty volumes of poetry and the foremost translator of ancient Greek literature into Hebrew, having published over thirty plays in annotated editions, as well as both the Iliad and the Odyssey. Three previous selections of his work have appeared in English translations by Peter Cole: Love & Selected Poems (Sheep Meadow Press, 1997), J’accuse (New Directions, 2003), which received the PEN Prize for Poetry in Translation, and War & Love, Love & War: Selected Poems (New Directions, 2010).

Headshot of Peter Cole 2025

Peter Cole’s most recent book of poems is Draw Me After (FSG). His new translations include Requiem, by Aharon Shabtai (New Directions) and On the Slaughter: Selected Poems, by Haim Nahman Bialik (NYRB, forthcoming). He also recently published That Simple?… That Complicated: Conversations on Poetry and Translation (Free Poetry). Cole has translated widely from Hebrew and Arabic, medieval and modern, and has received numerous honors for his work, including a PEN Translation Prize, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a MacArthur Fellowship, a National Jewish Book Award, and an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature.

Cover of Requiem by Aharon Shabtai

PUBLISHER

Requiem
New Directions

New York, New York

  • Featured book

"Long one of the most outspoken Israeli critics of his government's treatment of the Palestinians, Aharon Shabtai is widely viewed as 'the most important Hebrew poet of his generation.'"
—The Boston Globe

Poetry Daily Depends on You

With your support, we make reading the best contemporary poetry a treasured daily experience. Consider a contribution today.

DONATE NOW