In a rough, windy night I have been listening To the movements of the wind And forming a kind of poem Without knowing its language. Ruach, I say, using The old biblical word For the wind, the breath Or spirit of God Moving after creation. But nothing follows: No other words Cross the darkness outside. There is only ruach, The word for the sound of the wind.
'Sound' is reprinted from A.C. Jacobs, Collected Poems and Selected Translations (The Menard Press/Hearing Eye, London 1996) by kind permission of the publishers.
Born in Glasgow in 1937, Arthur Jacobs grew up in a traditional Jewish family. The family moved to London in 1951, where Arthur lived for much of his life. He died in Madrid in 1994. As well as writing his own poems, he was a distinguished translator of modern Hebrew poetry, including David Vogel and Avraham Ben Yitzhak.