Songs by Yehuda Amichai
As it is Jerusalem day tomorrow (25.05.06) we thought it would be nice to introduce you to a few songs about Jerusalem...
Jerusalem (1948-1962) – Yehuda Amichai
On a roof in the Old City
Laundry hanging in the late afternoon sunlight:
The white sheet of a woman who is my enemy,
The towel of a man who is my enemy,
To wipe off the sweat of his brow.
In the sky of the Old City
A Kite.
At the other end of the string,
A Child
I can’t see
Because of the wall.
We have put up many flags,
They have put up many flags.
To make us think that they’re happy.
To make them think that we’re happy.
Jerusalem (1967) – part 5 – Yehuda Amichai
On Yom Kippur in 1967, the Year of Forgetting, I put on
My dark holiday clothes and walked to the Old City of Jerusalem.
For a long time I stood in front of an Arab’s hole-in-the wall shop, not
far
from the Damascus Gate, a shop with
Buttons and zippers and spools of thread
In every colour and snaps and buckles.
A rare light and many colours, like an open Ark.
I told him in my heart that my father too
Had a shop like his, with threads and buttons.
I explained to him in my heart about all the decades
And the causes and the events why I am now here
And my father’s shop was burned there and he is buried here.
When I finished, it was time of the Closing of the Gates prayer.
He too lowered the shutters and locked the gate
And I returned, with all the worshippers, home.
Ecology of Jerusalem (1980) – Yehuda Amichai
The air over Jerusalem is saturated with prayers and dreams
Like the air over industrial cities.
It’s hard to breather.
And from time to time a new shipment of history arrives
And the houses and towers are its packing materials.
Later these are discarded and pile up in dumps.
And sometimes candles arrive instead of people,
And then it’s quiet.
And sometimes people come instead of candles,
And then there’s noise.
And in enclosed gardens heavy with jasmine
Foreign consulates,
Like wicked brides that have been rejected,
Lie in wait for their moment.
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