{"id":1756,"date":"2018-07-18T10:31:09","date_gmt":"2018-07-18T08:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/2018\/07\/18\/yehuda-amichai-poems-about-jerusalem"},"modified":"2019-03-23T21:39:05","modified_gmt":"2019-03-23T19:39:05","slug":"yehuda-amichai-poems-about-jerusalem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/2018\/07\/18\/yehuda-amichai-poems-about-jerusalem\/","title":{"rendered":"A Selection of Yehuda Amichai’s Poems About Jerusalem"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post<\/a> offers the English translation of a selection of poems about Jerusalem, written by the iconic poet, Yehuda Amichai, who spent much of his life in the city.<\/em>\u00a0Some of the poems mention significant sites in Jerusalem, including the Western Wall, Ammunition Hill, the Temple Mount, the Old City, Yad Vashem, Mount Herzl, the Tower of David, Mount Zion and Yemin Moshe.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

JERUSALEM IS A PORT CITY<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

Jerusalem is a port city\u00a0on the shore of eternity.
\nThe Temple Mount is a great ship, a pleasure yawl
\nIn splendor.
\nFrom the portholes of her Wailing Wall, jubilant saints
\nPeer like passengers. Hasidim on the pier wave
\nGoodbye, yelling hurrah, bon voyage. She
\nIs always docking, always embarking.
\nAnd the fences and docks
\nAnd policemen and flags and churches’ high masts
\nAnd the mosques and the smokestacks of synagogues and the chanteys
\nOf praise and mountain-billows.
\nThe ram’s horn sounds out sunset: one more
\nHas set sail.
\nYom Kippur sailors in white uniforms
\nAscend between the ropes and ladders of tried-and-true prayers.
\nAnd the profits of market and gates and goldencap domes:
\nJerusalem is the Venice of God.<\/p>\n

JERUSALEM IS A SPINNING CAROUSEL<\/h3>\n

Jerusalem is a carousel spinning round and round
\nfrom the Old City through every neighborhood and back to the Old.
\nAnd you can\u2019t get off. If you jump you\u2019re risking your life
\nand if you step off when it stops you must pay again
\nto get back on for more turns that never will end.
\nInstead of painted elephants and horses to ride
\nreligions go up, down and around on their axes
\nto unctuous melodies from the houses of prayer.<\/p>\n

Jerusalem is a seesaw: Sometimes I go down,
\nto past generations and sometimes up, into the sky,
\nthen like a child dangling on high, legs swinging, I cry
\nI want to get down, Daddy, Daddy, I want to get down,
\nDaddy, get me down.
\nAnd like that, all the saints go up into the sky.
\nThey\u2019re like children screaming, Daddy, I want to stay high,
\nDaddy don\u2019t bring me down, Our Father Our King,
\nleave me on high, Our Father Our King!<\/p>\n

TOURISTS<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Visits of condolence is all we get from them.
\nThey squat at the Holocaust Memorial,
\nThey put on grave faces at the Wailing Wall
\nAnd they laugh behind the heavy curtains
\nIn their hotels.
\nThey have their pictures taken
\nTogether with our famous dead
\nAt Rachel\u2019s Tomb and Herzl\u2019s Tomb
\nAnd on the top of Ammunition Hill.
\nThey weep over our sweet boys
\nAnd lust over our tough girls
\nAnd hang up their underwear
\nTo dry quickly
\nIn cool, blue bathrooms.<\/p>\n

Once I sat on the steps by a gate at David\u2019s Tower. I placed my two heavy baskets at my side.
\nA group of tourists was standing around their guide and I became their target marker.
\n\u201cYou see that man with the baskets? Just right of his head there\u2019s an arch from the Roman period. Just right of his head.\u201d
\n\u201cBut he\u2019s moving, he\u2019s moving!\u201d
\nI said to myself: \u201credemption will come only if their guide tells them, \u2018You see that arch from the Roman period? It\u2019s not important: but next to it, left down and a bit, there sits a man who\u2019s bought fruit and vegetables for his family.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

VIEW OF JERUSALEM<\/h3>\n

On a roof in the Old City
\nlaundry hanging in the late afternoon sunlight
\nthe white sheet of a woman who is my enemy,
\nthe towel of a man who is my enemy,
\nto wipe off the sweat of his brow.
\nIn the sky of the Old City
\na kite
\nAt the other end of the string,
\na child
\nI can\u2019t see
\nbecause of the wall.
\nWe have put up many flags,
\nthey have put up many flags.
\nTo make us think that they\u2019re happy
\nTo make them think that we\u2019re happy.<\/p>\n

AN ARAB SHEPHERD IS SEARCHING FOR HIS GOAT ON MOUNT ZION<\/h3>\n

An Arab shepherd is searching for his goat on Mount Zion and on the opposite mountain I am searching for my little boy.
\nAn Arab shepherd and a Jewish father both in their temporary failure.
\nOur voices meet above the Sultan’s Pool in the valley between us.
\nNeither of us wants the child or the goat to get caught in the wheels of the terrible Had Gadya machine.
\nAfterward we found them among the bushes and our voices came back inside us, laughing and crying.
\nSearching for a goat or a son has always been the beginning of a new religion in these mountains.<\/p>\n

ECOLOGY OF JERUSALEM<\/h3>\n

The air over Jerusalem is saturated with prayers
\nand dreams
\nlike the air over industrial cities.
\nIt\u2019s hard to breathe.
\nAnd from time to time a new shipment of history arrives
\nand the houses and towers are its packing materials.
\nLater these are discarded and piled up in dumps.
\nAnd sometimes candles arrive instead of people
\nand then it\u2019s quiet.
\nAnd sometimes people come instead of candles
\nand then there\u2019s noise.
\nAnd in enclosed gardens heavy with jasmine
\nforeign consulates,
\nlike wicked brides that have been rejected,
\nlie in wait for their moment.<\/p>\n

Jerusalem is a see-saw
\nSometimes I dip down
\ninto past generations
\nand sometimes I rise skywards and then
\nyell like a child yelling, his legs swinging way up
\nI want to get off, Dad, I want to get off,
\nDad, help me off.<\/p>\n

And that’s how all the holy men ascend to heaven
\nlike children shouting,
\nFather I want to stay up here
\nFather, don’t get me down, our Father our King,
\nLeave us up here, our Father our King!”<\/p>\n

IF I FORGET THEE, JERUSALEM<\/h3>\n

If I forget thee, Jerusalem,
\nThen let my right be forgotten.
\nLet my right be forgotten, and my left remember.
\nLet my left remember, and your right close
\nAnd your mouth open near the gate.<\/p>\n

I shall remember Jerusalem
\nAnd forget the forest — my love will remember,
\nWill open her hair, will close my window,
\nwill forget my right,
\nWill forget my left.<\/p>\n

If the west wind does not come
\nI’ll never forgive the walls,
\nOr the sea, or myself.
\nShould my right forget
\nMy left shall forgive,
\nI shall forget all water,
\nI shall forget my mother.<\/p>\n

If I forget thee, Jerusalem,
\nLet my blood be forgotten.
\nI shall touch your forehead,
\nForget my own,
\nMy voice change
\nFor the second and last time
\nTo the most terrible of voices —
\nOr silence.<\/p>\n

Jerusalem, 1967<\/h3>\n

On a roof in the Old City
\nLaundry hanging in the late afternoon sunlight:
\nThe white sheet of a woman who is my enemy,
\nThe towel of a man who is my enemy,
\nTo wipe off the sweat of his brow.<\/p>\n

In the sky of the Old City
\nA kite.
\nAt the other end of the string,
\nA child
\nI can\u2019t see
\nBecause of the wall.<\/p>\n

We have put up many flags,
\nThey have put up many flags.
\nTo make us think that they\u2019re happy.
\nTo make them think that we\u2019re happy.<\/p>\n

Jerusalem, 1967<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

On Yom Kippur 5728, I donned
\nDark holiday clothing and walked to Jerusalem\u2019s Old City.
\nI stood for quite a while in front of the kiosk shop of an Arab,
\nNot far from Shchem (Nablus) Gate, a shop
\nfull of buttons, zippers and spools of thread
\nOf every color; and snaps and buckles.
\nBrightly lit and many colored like the open Holy Ark.<\/p>\n

I said to him in my heart that my father too
\nOwned a shop just like this of buttons and thread.
\nI explained to him in my heart about all the decades
\nAnd the reasons and the events leading me to be here now
\nWhile my father\u2019s shop burned there and he is buried here.<\/p>\n

When I concluded it was the hour of N\u2019eilah (\u201clocking the gates\u201d).
\nHe too drew down the shutters and locked the gate
\nAs I returned homeward with all the other worshippers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Windmill of Yemin Moshe<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

This windmill never ground flour.
\nIt ground holy air and Bialik\u2019s
\nBirds of longing, it ground
\nWords and ground time, it ground
\nRain and even shells
\nBut it never ground flour.<\/p>\n

Now it\u2019s discovered us,
\nAnd grinds our lives day by day
\nMaking out of us the flour of peace
\nMaking out of us the bread of peace
\nFor the generation to come.<\/p>\n

Jerusalem, 1967<\/h3>\n

This year I traveled a long way to view the silence of my city.
\nA baby calms down when you rock it, a city calms down from the distance.
\nI dwelled in longing. I played the hopscotch
\nof the four strict squares of Yehuda Ha-Levi.
\nMy heart. Myself. The East. The West.<\/p>\n

I heard bells ringing in the religions of time,
\nbut the wailing I heard inside me
\nhas always been from my Judean desert.<\/p>\n

Now that I’ve come back, I’m screaming again.
\nAnd at night, stars rise like the bubbles of the drowned,
\nand every morning I scream the scream of a newborn baby
\nat the tumult of houses and at all this huge light.<\/p>\n

\u2026.<\/p>\n

The city plays hide and seek among her names:
\nYerusahlayim, Al-Quds, Salem, Jeru, Yeru,<\/em> all the while
\nWhispering her first Jebusite name: Y\u2019vus,
\nY\u2019vus, Y\u2019vus<\/em>, in the dark. She weeps
\nwith longing: Ilia Capitolina, Ilia, Ilia.
\n<\/em>She comes to any man who calls her
\nat night, alone. But we know
\nwho comes to whom.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A Touch of Grace<\/h3>\n

At times Jerusalem is a city of knives,
\nAnd even the hopes for peace are sharp enough to slice into
\nThe harsh reality and they become dulled or broken.
\nThe church bells try so hard to ring out calm, round tones,
\nBut they become heavy like a pestle pounding on a mortar,
\nHeavy, muffled, downtrodden voices. And the cantor
\nAnd the muezzin try to sing sweetly
\nBut in the end the sharp wail bursts forth:
\nO Lord, God of us all, The Lord is One
\nOne, one, one, one.
\n(The Hebrew word for \u201cone\u201d also means \u201csharp\u201d in Hebrew)<\/p>\n

Eicha<\/h3>\n

\u201cHow doth the city sit solitary,\u201d the prophet
\nlamented over Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

If Jerusalem is a woman, does she know desire?
\nWhen she cries out, is it from pleasure
\nor pain? What is the secret of her appeal?
\nWhen does she open her gates willingly and when is it rape?<\/p>\n

All her lovers abandon her, leaving her
\nwith the wages of love necklaces earrings,
\ntowers and houses of prayer
\nin the English, Italian, Russian, Greek, Arab styles,
\nwood and stone, turrets and gables, wrought-iron gates,
\nrings of gold and silver, riots of color. They all give her
\nsomething to remember her by, then abandon her.<\/p>\n

I would have liked to talk to her again, but I lost her
\namong the dancers. Dance is total abandon.
\nJerusalem sees only the skies above her
\nand whoever sees only the skies above\u2013not<\/p>\n

the face of her lover\u2013truly does lie solitary,
\nsit solitary, stand solitary, and dance all alone.<\/p>\n

Songs of Zion the Beautiful<\/h3>\n

Jerusalem\u2019s a place where everyone remembers he\u2019s forgotten something
\nbut doesn\u2019t remember what it is.
\nAnd for the sake of remembering I wear my father\u2019s face over mine.
\nThis is the city where my dream-containers fill up like a diver\u2019s oxygen tanks.
\nIts holiness sometimes turns into love.
\nAnd the questions that are asked in these hills
\nare the same as they\u2019ve always been: \u201cHave you
\nseen my sheep?\u201d \u201cHave you seen my shepherd?\u201d
\nAnd the door of my house stands open
\nlike a tomb where someone was resurrected.<\/p>\n

Jerusalem\u2019s a place where everyone remembers
\nhe\u2019s forgotten something
\nBut doesn\u2019t remember what it is.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post offers the English translation of a selection of poems about Jerusalem, written by the iconic poet, Yehuda Amichai, who spent much of his life in the city.\u00a0Some of the poems mention significant sites in Jerusalem, including the Western Wall, Ammunition Hill, the Temple Mount, the Old City, Yad Vashem, Mount Herzl, the Tower […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":7346,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1655,2550,1778,1643,2553,1711,2554,236,1700],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1756\/"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post\/"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81\/"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments\/?post=1756"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1756\/revisions\/"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7739,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1756\/revisions\/7739\/"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7346\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/?parent=1756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories\/?post=1756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags\/?post=1756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}