Pears

The pears are not seen
As the observer wills.
—Wallace Stevens

1
Sometimes they are pears.
At other times, sirens in a basket.
And, not so often, violins
one tunes with a stem.

2
Pears hold their heads up high,
they have cello-shaped waists and curvy hips.
Buddha adapted their way of sitting
in order to reside inside nothingness.

3
The pears are dressed in a green suit
with red pockets.
The poets among them wear
a felt fedora with a leaf.

4
Their single hair jumps to attention
or curves like a whip, raised against
the clayness of the bowl, the pressing of fingers,
of teeth.

5
The great communist painter
Pablo Picasso framed them into cubes.
With lopped heads, they resemble
their common brethren, the apples.

6
Their shadow is like sudden excitement,
a breathtaking leap that ends
in disenchantment:
the murmur of the stem, the echo of the leaf.

—Translated by Ohad Stadler