The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai (29 page)

than the color of flames.

The shock absorbers are calmer than the dead

who won’t quiet down for a long time.

A wind that is time alternates

with a wind that is place, and God

remains down here like a man who thinks

he’s forgotten something, and will stick around

until he remembers.

And at night, like a wondrous melody,

you can hear man and machine

on their slow journey from a red fire

to a black peace and from there to history

to archaeology to the beautiful

strata of geology:

that too is eternity and a deep joy.

Like human sacrifice that became

animal sacrifice, then loud prayer,

then prayer in the heart,

and then no prayer at all.

We Did What We Had To

We did what we had to.

We went out with our children

to gather mushrooms in the forest

we planted ourselves when we were children.

We learned the names of the wildflowers

whose fragrance

was like blood spilled in vain.

We loaded a great love onto little bodies.

We stood enlarged and reduced by turns

in the eyes of the mad god, Holder of the Binoculars,

and in the War of the Sons of Light with the Sons of Darkness,

we loved the good soothing dark and hated

the painful light.

We did what we had to, we loved our childhood

better than our homeland.

We’ve already dug all the wells into the ground,

and now we’re digging into the emptiness of the sky.

Wells, wells,

without end, to no end.

We did what we had to.

We replaced “Remember, O God” with “Let us forget”

the way they change the number on the front of the bus

when the destination changes,

or the sign “Dew and Showers” on the synagogue wall

to “He Who Brings Rain”

when the seasons change.

We did what we had to.

We arranged our lives into flowerbeds and shade

and straight paths for pleasant strolling

like the garden of a mental asylum.

Our despair is domesticated and gives us peace.

Only our hopes have remained

wild, their cries

shatter the night and tear apart the day.

We did what we had to.

We were like people who enter a movie theater

and pass by those who are leaving, flushed

or pale, quietly crying or laughing aloud.

Who enter without looking back or turning around,

into the light and the darkness and the light.

We did what we had to do.

Notes

The Smell of Gasoline Ascends in My Nose

line 3
,
etrog
:
A citron.
It is packed in wool because any damage would make it unfit for ritual use on the feast of Tabernacles.

Yehuda Ha-Levi

title
,
Yehuda Ha-Levi
(before 1075—after 1141): Hispano-Jewish poet and philosopher.

Ibn Gabirol

title
, Shlomo
Ibn Gabirol
(ca.
1021—ca.
1055): Hispano-Jewish poet and philosopher, known to the Scholastics as Avicebron.

Not Like a Cypress

line 19
,
shofar:
Ram’s horn, blown in the synagogue on the High Holy Days.

Half the People in the World

line 25
,
appalling stations:
See note to “An Arab Shepherd is Searching for His Goat on Mount Zion,” p.
189.

From
In a Right Angle: A Cycle of Quatrains

# 43, line 3
,
the bush that burned:
Ex.
3:1 ff.

# 45, line 4
,
boils the flesh of the lamb:
“Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk” (Deut.
14:21): one of the principal sources of the elaborate rabbinic dietary laws.

Such as Sorrow

line 8
,
a candle snuffed in the wine:
In the ceremony that closes the Sabbath.

Jerusalem

Written in 1958, when the Old City was still part of Jordanian territory.

In the Full Severity of Mercy

line 4
,
like the stars:
Gen.
15:5.

Jerusalem, 1967

title
,
1967:
The year of the Six-Day War.

#1, line 5
,
the four strict squares of Yehuda Ha-Levi:
“My heart is in the East and I am at the edge of the West.”

#5, line 1
,
year of forgetting:
The date 1967 ( = 5728) is expressed in Hebrew letters that also form the word for “forget.”

#5, line 13
,
Closing of the Gates:
The final prayer in the Yom Kippur service.

# 20, line 10
,
Else Lasker-Schüler
(1869-1945): German-Jewish poet.

National Thoughts

line 8
,
mitzvah dance:
Ritual dance performed on joyous occasions.

A Luxury

line 13
,
hametz:
Food forbidden on Passover; includes leavened bread, wheat products, and legumes.

Elegy

line 7
,
Arch of Titus:
Erected in Rome to celebrate the capture of Jerusalem in the year 70.
Titus, son of the emperor Vespasian, was commander of the Roman army in Palestine.
He became emperor in the year 79.

Now in the Storm

line 6
,
hamsin:
A hot desert wind that blows in Israel at the beginning and the end of summer.

Travels of the Last Benjamin of Tudela

title
,
the Last Benjamin of Tudela:
Benjamin of Tudela (second half of the twelfth century) was the greatest medieval Jewish traveler; his account of his journey through Provence, Italy, Palestine, Syria, Persia, and Egypt is contained in his famous
Book of Travels.
The second Benjamin was Israel Joseph Benjamin (1818-1864), a Rumanian explorer who styled himself Benjamin II; he described his experiences searching for the Ten Lost Tribes in a book entitled
Five Years of Travel in the Orient, 1846-1851
.
The third Benjamin was the hero of a satiric novel,
Travels of the Third Benjamin,
by the Yiddish writer Mendele Mocher Sforim (Shalom Abramowitsch).
The last, of course, is Amichai, who when he wrote this poem was living on Benjamin of Tudela Street in Jerusalem.

line 4
,
undershawl:
An undershirt with tassels attached to each of its four corners; worn by Orthodox Jewish males.

line 66
,
I confess before Thee:
A prayer from the Morning Service.

line 88
,
kohanim:
Descendants of the priestly families.

line 110
,
1936:
Year of anti-Jewish and anti-British Arab riots.

line 137
,
kosher:
The process of making meat kosher involves soaking it in rock salt to drain out the blood.

line 139
,
kashrut:
Ritual purity; the condition of being kosher.

line 212
,
seven kinds:
The seven fruits and grains of the land of Israel, according to the Talmud: wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates.

line 219
,
blessing:
Recited every morning by Orthodox Jewish women.
The blessing recited by men is “Blessed art Thou, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who did not make me a woman” (sic).

line 236
,
rubber-soled shoes:
Rabbinic tradition forbids the wearing of leather on Yom Kippur.

line 237
,
high-jumped:
During the prayer “Holy, Holy, Holy,” Orthodox Jews stand up on their toes to imitate the angels.

line 239
,
Simchat Torah:
Festival of the Rejoicing in the Torah, during which observant Jews walk or dance around the synagogue carrying Torah scrolls.

line 263 f.
,
stand in awe
.
.
.
: Ps.
4:5.

line 265
,
Hear O Israel:
Deut.
6:4.

line 284
,
Urim and Tumim:
Ex.
28:30.

lines 415 f.
,
the four questions:
Part of the Passover ritual, recited at the Seder by the youngest male.

line 417
,
the one kid:
See note to “An Arab Shepherd Is Searching for His Goat on Mount Zion,” p.
189.

line 420
,
the door for Elijah:
During the Seder the door is left ajar in case the prophet Elijah should come to announce the arrival of the Messiah,

line 421
,
“And it came to pass at midnight”:
Passover song,

line 450
,
supplications:
Written on slips of paper by Orthodox Jews and stuck in between the stones of the Wailing Wall.

line 467
,
Balaam’s ass:
Num.
22:22 ff.

line 494
,
While this one is still coming:
Cf.
Job 1:16.

line 546
,
Bialik:
Hayim Nachman Bialik (1873-1934), the first major modern Hebrew poet.

line 561
,
King David Hotel:
Headquarters of the British government in Palestine; one wing of the hotel was blown up by Jewish terrorists in 1946.

line 571 f.
,
Street of/the Sisters:
In the red-light district.

line 572
,
Shmuel Ha-Nagid
(993-1056): Hispano-Jewish vizier, general, and poet.

line 586
,
A house
.
.
.
: Cf.
Eccles.
3:19.

line 587
,
shiva:
The seven days of mourning after a death.

line 596
,
double:
Lev.
12:1 ff.
and 14:1 ff.

line 601
,
twenty-four:
The number of books in the Bible.

line 631
,
Valley of the Ghosts:
Street in Jerusalem.

line 660
,
Josephus
(ca.
37-ca.
95): Jewish general and historian; surrendered to the Romans in the year 67.

line 668
,
Titus:
See note to “Elegy,” p.
186.

line 702
,
Yodfat:
One of the fortresses that held out against the Romans.

line 724
,
fasts:
In atonement for the sin of dropping a Torah scroll.

line 740
,
Elul:
August-September.

line 764
,
“Come O bride”:
A Friday-night hymn to welcome the Sabbath.

line 797
,
Ahasuerus:
In the Book of Esther.

line 806
,
Purim:
Holiday celebrating the rescue of the Jews from Haman’s plots in the Book of Esther.
Kippurim
is Yom Kippur.

line 821
,
Shtreimls:
Round, fur-trimmed hats worn by Ultra-Orthodox Jews on the Sabbath.

line 906
,
poem by Goethe:
“Erlkönig.”

line 910
,
This too by Goethe:
“Hartzreise im Winter.”

line 948
,
Don’t go to the ant:
Cf.
Prov.
6:6.

line 997
,
what are we, what is our life:
From the Yom Kippur liturgy.

Jews in the Land of Israel

line 9
,
the Bible story of Shechem and the sons of Jacob:
Gen.
34.

Wildpeace

line 2
,
The vision of the wolf and the lamb:
Isa.
11:6.

line 11
,
beating swords into ploughshares:
Isa.
2:4.

Psalm

line 16
,
that bunch of shiny pampered grapes:
Num.
13:23.

From
Songs of Zion the Beautiful

#12, line 1
, Joseph
Trumpeldor
(1880-1920): A legendary hero of the Jewish settlement in Palestine, killed while defending Tel Hai.

#14, line 4
,
A.
D.
Gordon
(1856-1922): Hebrew writer and spiritual mentor of the Zionist labor movement, who set an example by working in the fields of Palestine.