A Poem By Yehuda Amichai
For these troubled times.
An Arab shepherd is searching for his goat on Mount Zion
And on the opposite mountain I am searching for my little boy.
An Arab shepherd and a Jewish father, both in their temporary failure.
Our voices meet above the Sultan’s Pool in the valley between us…
Afterward we found them in the bushes and our voices came back inside us laughing and crying.
Searching for a goat or a son has always been the beginning of a new religion in these mountains.
When you published a post of Yehuda Amichai's The Place Where We Are Right in, it seems to me that Sheldon has just delivered a silent gut-punch to the frenzy of two fathers, Arab and Jewish, shouting over the same subject, Sultan, Pool. That crude humanity breaks through: the provisional failures that chain us, bushes covering the discoveries, laughter mingling with weeping. Such hunts, you remind us, give birth to religion.
fallout and interminable Mideast stasis, this poem has no lectures; it has only the truth of the mountainside. Love your Crit doth remain ferocious and yet pausest at 90 plus to poetry. Questions: Has Amichai become ever more vocal in his plea after the ceasefires, or has he been subdued by new headlines? Is there any personal hunting that teaches your lens? More jewels such as these, your collection restores.