Dahlia Ravikovitch

Dahlia Ravikovitch Poems

Dahlia Ravikovitch Biography

Dahlia Ravikovitch (November 17, 1936 – August 21, 2005) was an Israeli poet, translator, and peace activist. Ravikovitch was born in Ramat Gan on November 27, 1936. She learned to read and write at the age of three. Her father, Levi, was a Russian-born Jewish engineer who arrived in the British Mandate of Palestine from China. Her mother, Michal, was a teacher who came from a religious household. When Dahlia was six, her father was run over and killed by a drunken driver. She moved to Kibbutz Geva with her mother but did not fit into the collectivist mentality and at 13 moved to a foster home in Haifa, the first of several foster homes. Ravikovitch married at 18, but divorced after three months. Her subsequent marriages also ended in divorce. She has one son, Ido Kalir. After completing her service in the Israel Defense Forces, she studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She worked as a journalist and high school teacher. She translated WB Yeats, TS Eliot, Edgar Allan Poe, and Mary Poppins into Hebrew. Ravikovitch was active in the Israeli peace movement. From her home in central Tel Aviv she collaborated with artists, musicians and public figures seeking peace, equality and social justice. During the last years of her life, she suffered from severe bouts of depression. On August 21, 2005, Ravikovitch was found dead in her apartment. Initial reports speculated the cause of death to be suicide, but the autopsy determined the cause to be sudden heart irregularities.)

The Best Poem Of Dahlia Ravikovitch

The Love of an Orange

An orange did love
The man who ate it.
A feast for the eyes
Is a fine repast;
Its heart held fast
His greedy gaze.

A citron did scold:
I am wiser than thou.
A cedar condoled:
Indeed thou shalt die!
And who can revive
A withered bough?

The citron did urge:
O fool, be wise.
The cedar did rage:
Slander and sin!
Repent of thy ways
For a fool I despise.

An orange did love
With life and limb
The man who ate it,
The man who flayed it.

An orange did love
The man who ate it,
To its flayer it brought
Flesh for the teeth.

An orange, consumed
By the man who ate it,
Invaded his skin
To the flesh beneath.

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