Hagit Mendrowski is a Israeli poet and writer. Was born on December 1971 in Haifa, Israel. Fifth daughter to Holocaust survivors. Both were born in Poland and were children during World war II. Her mother was rased as a refugee in Kazachstan and her father was taken to concentration camps in Poland and Germany.
Hagit’s poems combine the emotional suffering she knew as a daughter to wounded parents who died when she was young, and also the emotional blossom and devotion she feels for her sons as a mother. The poems also deals with the pain of her country due to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict aside to great love for her home land. Her poem ‘Aclipse’ was also translated to Arabic (By Mr. Nabil Naser Eldin) and was published in The Israeli Newspaper ‘Ha’ Aretz’.
Since the age of 20, Hagit’s poems and short stories were published in Israel and the U.S. On 2016 Hagit published her first Poems book in Hebrew, called ‘The Compassion of the Crow Woman’. The following poems are taken from that book, translated to English by Mr. Oded Peled. These days Hagit is editing her new poems to a second book.
In her profession Hagit is a Therapist and Screen writer. Working mainly with elders.
Please visit: www.lev-kotev.com
My father would quarry in stone, pump water even if there was no
Water, to quench his thirst.
I looked at his concrete-battered hands,
Accustomed to lime and hardship.
And when he wanted to touch, I gave myself over
And I didn’t mind his palms being cracked and rough
And their sensation on the skin as if peeling all sensation from me.
So long as he would touch.
My father didn’t touch much. Nor talk much.
And when he died, the concrete and stone cracked,
And there was naught in my heart but water, its saltiness broke
Through the walls.
By Hagit Mendrowski
© Translated from Hebrew by Oded Peled
Eclipse
Tonight there will be a lunar eclipse in me,
And I’ll know nothing but darkness.
A small body will penetrate the large body,
Nothing will be formed but silence.
Tonight I’ll make a lunar eclipse in me.
I wish to know nothing but darkness.
My tiny body will be cradled in the lap of my giant body.
I keep quiet. The voice of the universe speaks.
By Hagit Mendrowski
© Translated from Hebrew by Oded Peled
Published with the permission of Hagit Mendrowski