Hills of Salt - Dahlia Ravikovitch

Sea Painting, Scituate, MA 8" x 10" oil on chip board

by Lauren E. Todd

Sea foam fluttered like birds' wings
and two salt hills were left on the beach,
and all the sea long was lake-upon-lake
with sailboats tiny as a thumb,
their colors like bubbles of soap.

And the two of us sat, each by his lakes,
two strips of beach between us
and a wealth of seaweed.
And the heavy fronds of algae swayed back and forth,
clinging to the teeth of the reefs with a soughing of unbridled lust.

A mass of seaweed broke loose and fell at my feet,
and my eyelids were heavy with light.
And the sea rose up and flowed over from pool to pool,
and across its blue streams there lay a scrim of sheen.

Lakes were brimming in the palms of our hands,
the strips of beach between us -- two arms wide.
And all that day we never drew near, not by a hairsbreadth,
our bodies like two salt hills, our feet like seaweed.

translated by Chana Bloch

Dahlia Ravikovitch (b. 17 Nov 1936 in Tel Aviv; d. 21 Aug 2005)