The Limestone

Avner Treinin

1999

If it forms the one landscape that we, the inconstant ones,
Are constantly homesick for, this is chiefly
Because it dissolves in water.
—Auden, “In Praise of Limestone”
If beauty and truth were to overlap in poetry
And if the water were to melt the stone indeed—
Then Jerusalem would not even be.
She exists because poetry disappoints
And she does…
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Creator Bio

Avner Treinin

1928–2011

Poet, fiction writer, and professor of chemistry at the Hebrew University, Avner Treinin was born in Tel Aviv and raised in Jerusalem. He fought in the 1948 War. He was awarded the Brenner Prize in 1986, and the Bialik Prize in 1989.

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