"Infinitely Empty Places," by Ariel Rathaus, is a skinny booklet even in relation to poetry books.
But one should not learn from its length about what is folded within it - poetry that reveals the secret that floats beneath the everyday, and offers a magical and mythological spark.
Born in Rome in 1949, Rathaus is a researcher and translator of literature, who has translated writings by Bucaccio, Gambatista Vico and Primo Levy, among others, and has given Zach, Wieseltir, Amichai and others the Italian poetry.
The book, too, like Rathaus himself, moves on the historical and dramatic axis between Rome and Jerusalem, and folds within it these opposing worlds.
In one of his poems he refers to the tension between Rome and Jerusalem, in correspondence with the song "Pine" by Leah Goldberg, which became a symbol of migration: I have been planted twice, / I have grown with you, eagles, / and I have taken root in two different lands. "
With this song in the background, and with it also "My heart to the east and my vertical at the end of the west" by R. Yehuda Halevi, Rathaus writes in the song "End of the West": " And a traffic light and an avenue pass over it, the edge of the city, a road goes down / and at the end of the road the sea,
And at the end of the day the death of the sun / And after the death of the sun, childhood.
/ Yes, now my heart swims to the end of the west, but the eagle / bowed to the east / and with it I am. "
The poet's roots tend to the myth - from the Talmud and literature of Greece and Rome he dola the legendary sources that attract the heart.
It is evident that Rathaus allows the Talmud and the Midrash as well as the writings of Homer and Dante to be used in unison in his poems, and addresses readers who are familiar with Hebrew and Western literature.
One of the love songs in the book uses the Talmudic myth (which may have originated in Plato's "Feast") about the creation of the first man as androgynous ("two-faced") divided into man and woman: "The first man two-headed The same double face / that was and is not ".
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On the other hand, Rathaus describes a routine situation of running to a bus that arrives at the station using the myth of Orpheus, who was allowed to enter to ask to get his dead lover out of it, but was forbidden to turn around and look at her until they came out of the underworld. .
Just so, I think it is a good idea to have a good time. I have lost forever and ever. "
The old couple is reminiscent of the double primordial creature myth, the passing bus is reminiscent of Orpheus - the routine ascends to a mythical level.
As mentioned, the book was signed in a cycle called "Midrash Odysseus", which offers new readings in the Homeric epic about Odysseus' return to his home.
The poems are written in the first person, with confessional fragments of Odysseus himself illuminating his life in a new light.
For example, Rathaus suggests that the famous siren song was actually the song of Odysseus himself and claims that Odysseus was the one who delayed his journey at sea for fear of returning home.
The cycle was signed, again, by a connection between the myth and the present: "I sat in the bus and a guy in jeans / read to me in a book / that the blind nomad was a friend / above".
Odysseus, traveling by bus next to a guy reading the Odyssey.
The ride is also a good time, and I have a good quality, / Like a stick in the hand of the skin ".
Ariel Rathaus / Infinitely Empty Places,
Carmel Publishing, 55 pages
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