Yehuda Amichai

[gracelynn.livejournal.com]

Wildpeace

Not the peace of a 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 only about 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.


Translated by Chana Bloch




Quick and Bitter

The end was quick and bitter.
Slow and sweet was the time between us,
slow and sweet were the nights
when my hands did not touch one another in despair but in the love
of your body which came
between them.

And when I entered into you
it seemed then that great happiness
could be measured with precision
of sharp pain. Quick and bitter.

Slow and sweet were the nights.
Now is bitter and grinding as sand—
"Let's be sensible" and similiar curses.

And as we stray further from love
we multiply the words,
words and sentences so long and orderly.
Had we remained together
we could have become a silence.


Translated by Assia Gutmann

Comments

[upatmidnight.livejournal.com]

On Wildpeace...a piece very appropriate for today's world...must we fill these fields/deserts/lands with such chaos...*sigh*
wonderful addition to this beautiful home of great poets...


Quick and Bitter...wow, i feel these words...in fact i've written something almost similar and have never read this poet...feel touched to have been at a similar point in life...

thank you for sharing these fine works!