1 Poem by Michael Stone

It’s Gone

Its gone, the fishing village,
wrapped around the bay,
with a lighthouse,
and small, dirty, working boats,
nets, and fish merchants.

Now it has upmarket restaurants,
a fair with colored tents
where they hawk
organic stuff,
Lebanese food,
baklava, fossil fish,
and Guiness T-shirts.

By the breakwater
half-tame seals beg
for crusts of bread.

Each time I’ve been back,
it grew more so, till
at lunch today,
in a fake-old pub,
with fake evening gloom,
fake fire burned in the grate.

I cannot go there again,
the village I used to visit
is gone.


Bionote 

Michael Stone was born in England in 1938. His family moved to Australia in 1941, where he received his schooling. He lives in Jerusalem with his family. He has published poems in numerous literary journals as well as translations of medieval Armenian poetry. Poems by him have also been anthologized in a number of collections. His poetic translation of Adamgirk', a medieval Armenian epic about Adam and Eve in 6,000 lines appeared with Oxford University Press and his Selected Poems with Cyclamens and Swords Press.
He was professor of Armenian and Religious Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem until his retirement in 2007. His academic activities have been devoted to two different disciplines, Jewish literature and thought in the period of the Second Temple, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Armenian Studies. His research and academic publications have been divided between these two fields.