on the homeland...
Revisited Yehuda Amichai today, the Israeli poet. With all that has been going on in Israel and Lebanon lately, his words keep echoing. I read that in 1973 when some students were called up they went back to the University and grabbed their gear, their rifles, and their copies of Yehuda Amichai's poetry. Chana Bloch, who relayed that story also translated the following poem from his original in Hebrew.
Wildpeace
Not the peace of cease-fire,
not even the vision of the wolf and the lamb,
but rather
as in the heart when the excitement is over
and you can talk about only a great weariness.
I know that I know how to kill,
that makes me an adult.
And my son plays with a toy gun that knows
how to open and close its eyes and say Mama.
A peace
without the big noise of beating swords into ploughshares,
without words, without
the thud of the heavy rubber stamp: let it be
light, floating, like lazy white foam.
A little rest for the wounds-
who speaks of healing?
(And the howl of the orphans is passed from one generation.
to the next, as in a relay race:
the baton never falls.)
Let it come
like wildflowers,
suddenly, because the field
must have it: wildpeace.
Wildpeace
Not the peace of cease-fire,
not even the vision of the wolf and the lamb,
but rather
as in the heart when the excitement is over
and you can talk about only a great weariness.
I know that I know how to kill,
that makes me an adult.
And my son plays with a toy gun that knows
how to open and close its eyes and say Mama.
A peace
without the big noise of beating swords into ploughshares,
without words, without
the thud of the heavy rubber stamp: let it be
light, floating, like lazy white foam.
A little rest for the wounds-
who speaks of healing?
(And the howl of the orphans is passed from one generation.
to the next, as in a relay race:
the baton never falls.)
Let it come
like wildflowers,
suddenly, because the field
must have it: wildpeace.
posted by yonderincarp at 15:26
3 Comments:
That was great.
You should write a poem called "Jesse get your gun."
Joey - My gun IS my poem.
Betzh - Sometime read his poems "For My Birthday" and "As for the World."
its helpful to understand 'suddenly' in the land's context. after the first spring showers the dry, cracked browness jumps to life...seemingly overnight. it is amazing beauty springing almost overnight from what looks dead and despondent.
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