Jews in the Land of Israel

We forget where we came from. Our Jewish

names from the Exile give us away,

bring back the memory of flower and fruit, medieval cities,

metals, knights who turned to stone, roses,

spices whose scent drifted away, precious stones, lots of red,

handicrafts long gone from the world

(the hands are gone too).

Circumcision does it to us,

as in the Bible story of Shechem and the sons of Jacob,

so that we go on hurting all our lives.

What are we doing, coming back here with this pain?

Our longings were drained together with the swamps,

the desert blooms for us, and our children are beautiful.

Even the wrecks of ships that sank on the way

reached this shore,

even winds did. Not all the sails.

What are we doing

in this dark land with its

yellow shadows that pierce the eyes?

(Every now and then someone says, even after forty

or fifty years: "The sun is killing me.")

What are we doing with these souls of mist, with these names,

with our eyes of forests, with our beautiful children,

with our quick blood?

Spilled blood is not the roots of trees

but it's the closest thing to roots

we have.

Source: The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2015)