TRISTIA

                      1

I live in Haifa, by the Mediterranean,
A wandering Canadian, dreaming of
The smog over Hamilton and sunrise
On the St. Lawrence at Quebec City.

Will I ever see my old homeland again?
Who knows? Perhaps Australia
Will be my next stop, or South America.
The farther one goes, the harder

It is to retrace one's steps.
In the end, I don't know in what
Strange soil my bones may be
Finally laid to rest.

                      2

The language of this country is so harsh
It sounds like bullfrogs croaking in a marsh
And makes me feel like Ovid, when exiled
To Tomis, forced to live among the wild
Getae. He kept on writing letters home,
Vainly requesting his recall to Rome,
And put his sorrows into verse that found him
No audience in the savages around him.

                      3

Across the Atlantic Ocean,
On Lake Ontario's shore,
Is the place where I was born and raised
And don't live any more;

A dear old dirty city
Where steel mills lit the night,
Blinding the starry heavens
With an infernal light.

What is this aching sorrow
I feel for Hamilton?
The longing of all exiles
Since the world began.

                      4

The dull grey heat of afternoon
Seems to forshadow rain, till I
Remember that this is Israel in April,
Not Canada in July.

It looks as though I can't depend
On instinct for guidance any more
If it's persistently hot and dry
When I feel that rain should pour.

                      5

I dreamt I stood upon a mountain height
Above a world reduced to black and white.
Only woods, fences and unfrozen streams
Were visible amid the fading light.

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