Leah Goldberg’s poetry and stories have moved me since childhood. In her unassuming yet distinct way, she conveyed messages of friendship, community, and
tolerance through everyday experiences, often with a quiet emotional clarity that continues to resonate.
Goldberg migrated from Lithuania to British-mandate Palestine in 1936. Her work intertwines themes of love, loss, and belonging with reflections on the immigrant
experience and the feeling of living between places. Having migrated from Israel to Australia myself, I feel a deep resonance with her words, as captured in her poem,
“Pines”:
“Perhaps only migrating birds know –
suspended between earth and sky –
the heartache of two homelands.”
A few years ago, I co-created a theatrical performance piece dedicated to Goldberg’s life and work. While composing music for that show, I wrote several songs inspired by her poetry, allowing the language to guide melody, rhythm, and tone. Returning to these poems recently, I was reminded of their delicacy and humanity, and felt drawn to explore that emotional thread more fully in new recordings.
This EP album release also connects to an earlier project of mine, which featured musical settings of poems by Yehuda Amichai, who once described Goldberg as “the
poet I fell in love with at age 17.”
In Word to Note, her poems are reimagined through a contemporary folk lens, featuring cello, piano, voice, and bass guitar, with contributions from Shanni Cohen
on piano and Neil Kelly on bass guitar.
Through these songs, I hope Goldberg’s reflections on identity, home, and connection can reach listeners across languages and generations, offering a quiet
reminder of empathy, attentiveness, and shared humanity.
To a Picture of My Mother (לתמונת אימי)
Poem by Leah Goldberg
Music by Adi Sappir
Lyrics:
You look so calm
You are other:
Proud, a bit, and embarrassed at being - my mother.
Accompanying me with a tear and a yielding smile
You never ask: “Who?”
You never wondered, never raged, when I came
To you daily demanding: “I need!”
With your own hands you gave all
Only because I am—me.
More than I, you remember today
My childhood's sorrows, and what your soul knew then:
The day your grown daughter would come to you,
She would bring with her grief that had grown up too.
Yes. I'll come broken and not ask how you are.
I'll not cry in your arms, not whisper: “Mama!”;
You'll know then: He who left me was dearer to me than you,
And you'll never ask: “Who?”
Leah Goldberg’s poetry and stories have moved me since childhood. In her unassuming yet distinct way, she conveyed messages of friendship, community, and
tolerance through everyday experiences, often with a quiet emotional clarity that continues to resonate.
Goldberg migrated from Lithuania to British-mandate Palestine in 1936. Her work intertwines themes of love, loss, and belonging with reflections on the immigrant
experience and the feeling of living between places. Having migrated from Israel to Australia myself, I feel a deep resonance with her words, as captured in her poem,
“Pines”:
“Perhaps only migrating birds know –
suspended between earth and sky –
the heartache of two homelands.”
A few years ago, I co-created a theatrical performance piece dedicated to Goldberg’s life and work. While composing music for that show, I wrote several songs inspired by her poetry, allowing the language to guide melody, rhythm, and tone. Returning to these poems recently, I was reminded of their delicacy and humanity, and felt drawn to explore that emotional thread more fully in new recordings.
This EP album release also connects to an earlier project of mine, which featured musical settings of poems by Yehuda Amichai, who once described Goldberg as “the
poet I fell in love with at age 17.”
In Word to Note, her poems are reimagined through a contemporary folk lens, featuring cello, piano, voice, and bass guitar, with contributions from Shanni Cohen
on piano and Neil Kelly on bass guitar.
Through these songs, I hope Goldberg’s reflections on identity, home, and connection can reach listeners across languages and generations, offering a quiet
reminder of empathy, attentiveness, and shared humanity.
To a Picture of My Mother (לתמונת אימי)
Poem by Leah Goldberg
Music by Adi Sappir
Lyrics:
You look so calm
You are other:
Proud, a bit, and embarrassed at being - my mother.
Accompanying me with a tear and a yielding smile
You never ask: “Who?”
You never wondered, never raged, when I came
To you daily demanding: “I need!”
With your own hands you gave all
Only because I am—me.
More than I, you remember today
My childhood's sorrows, and what your soul knew then:
The day your grown daughter would come to you,
She would bring with her grief that had grown up too.
Yes. I'll come broken and not ask how you are.
I'll not cry in your arms, not whisper: “Mama!”;
You'll know then: He who left me was dearer to me than you,
And you'll never ask: “Who?”