Memorial Service

Ayin Tur-Malka

1972

Crags in the mountains facing us
are like bereaved mothers
who long ago altered their image:
dew does not slake them,
the sun does not gild them.
—How terrible their silence
and where can we flee?—
A memorial service: belated prayer for mercy.
The sons lie flat
in the wide earth
and the mothers stand tall.
In the line of rain they soak
the depths…
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Creator Bio

Ayin Tur-Malka

b. 1926

Ayin Tur-Malka (pen name of Aliza Grinberg; born Aliza Gurevich) was raised in Jerusalem and published her first poems at the age of sixteen. Tur-Malka was a member of the Leḥi militant group. In 1950, she married the poet Uri Zvi Greenberg and took on her pen name. After her husband’s death in 1981, Tur-Malka studied Jewish philosophy at Tel Aviv University. Since then, she has been engaged in publishing Greenberg’s complete works, as well as her own poetry. In 2014, she was awarded the Levi Eshkol prize for Hebrew poets.

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