When I started translating [Natan Yonatan]'s poems in early 1997, he was planning a volume of poetry in English only. My responsibility was perfectly clear: these translations were to be poems in and of themselves - "stand-alones" - for as Natan knew, to render a poem from one language into another is to literally write it anew.

This gathering at Natan and Nili Yonatan's home in the winter of 2004 was to discuss both my work with my friend on a rare and dear project as well as my own lonely attempt to fulfill one of his last wishes. That evening, Nili served us a favorite dish of Natan's - reminiscent, I imagine, of his Ukrainian roots - pickled fish, green onions, black bread and white cheese, which he managed to eat with some pleasure despite his deteriorating health. He was tired, but had not lost his hearty appearance, or his desire to tell a good story. That was when he told me of his affinity for [Percy Bysshe Shelley] and how he had undertaken a translation of "Ode to the West Wind" during that first hard winter when he was acting as one of the builders of Kibbutz Sarid.

The resolution came on the day construction at the kibbutz was completed. Natan plodded home through the mud as he had every other day, when suddenly there was a break in the clouds. He reached his shack and completed the translation of Shelley's final lines of the poem that Natan Yonatan loved so well, and which I here lovingly dedicate to his memory: