YOU ARE MAN AND TO MAN YOU SHALL RETURN

Death in war begins when a young man goes down the stairs. Death in war begins when a door is closed in silence, death in war begins when the window is opened to look out. So do not weep for the one who leaves, but for the one who goes down the stairs of his house, do not weep for the one who puts the keys into his last pocket. Weep for the photograph that remembers in our place, weep for the paper that remembers, and for the tears that do not remember. This spring, who then will rise and say to the dust: you are man and to man you shall return.

FOUR POEMS OF WAR AND PEACE

1

In a small garden, near my house, the names of the dead soldiers are engraved one beneath the other on a marble stele in clear letters, like the names of the tenants at the entrance of a great empty house.

2.

I think of the boy with red hair fallen here, and of his coiled wife. I think of the coiled wife of the man fallen years ago. And I think of the coiled wife who is now a mute woman. The true abortion is that of death in war: against it one does not protest.

3.

One day a bomb went off near the butcher: the bled meat was bled once again, but already there is no more grief nor almost any more blood.

4.

I am a racist of peace: the blue eyes kill, the black eyes massacre, the curly hair cuts throats, the smooth hair bombards, the dark skins flay my skin, and the white skins spill my blood. Only those who have no color, only the transparent ones are good, who let me sleep at night in peace and glimpse the sky through them.

Yehouda Amichaï