A Man in His Life: A Poem by Yehuda Amichai

 

אדם בחייו אין לו זמן שיהיה לו

זמן לכל.

ואין לו עת שתהיה לו עת

לכל חפץ. קהלת לא צדק כשאמר כך.

A man in his life doesn’t have time to have
a time for everything.
He doesn't have enough seasons to have a season
for every purpose. Qohelet didn’t get it right when he said that.

אדם צריך לשנא ולאהב בבת אחת

באותן עיניים לבכות ובאותן עיניים לצחוק

באותן ידים לזרוק אבנים

ובאותן ידים לאסוף אותן,

לעשות אהבה במלחמה ומלחמה באהבה.

A man needs to love and hate in the same instant,
to laugh and cry with one and the same eyes,
with one and the same hands to throw stones,
and with one and the same hands to gather them,
to make love in war and war in love.

ולשנוא ולסלוח ולזכור ולשכוח

ולסדר ולבלבל ולאכל ולעכל

את מה שהסטוריה ארכה

עושה בשנים רבות מאד.

To hate and forgive, to remember and forget,
to arrange and confuse, to eat and digest
what history elongates
over a great many years.

אדם בחייו אין לו זמן.

כשהוא מאבד הוא מחפש

כשהוא מוצא הוא שוכח,

כשהוא שוכח הוא אוהב

וכשהוא אוהב הוא מתחיל לשכוח.

A man in his life doesn’t have time.
The moment he lets go, he seeks.
The moment he finds, he forgets.
The moment he forgets, he loves.
The moment he loves, he begins to forget. 

ונפשו למודה,

His soul is skilled,

ונפשו מקצועית מאד

רק גופו נשאר חובב

תמיד. מנסה וטועה

לא לומד ומתבלבל

שכור ועור בתענוגיו ובמכאוביו.

his soul is very efficient.
Only his body remains an amateur
forever. It tries and errs,
it doesn’t learn, it gets confused,
drunk and blind in its pleasures and its pains.

מות תאנים ימות בסתו

מצמק ומלא בעצמו ומתוק,

העלים מתיבשים על האדמה,

והענפים הערומים כבר מצביעים

אל המקום שבו זמן לכל.

He will die as figs do, in autumn,
shriveled and full of himself and sweet,
leaves dessicating on the ground,
bare branches already pointing
to the place where there's time for everything.

Happiness

JANE KENYON

There’s just no accounting for happiness,

or the way it turns up like a prodigal

who comes back to the dust at your feet

having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?

You make a feast in honor of what

was lost, and take from its place the finest

garment, which you saved for an occasion

you could not imagine, and you weep night and day

to know that you were not abandoned,

that happiness saved its most extreme form

for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never

knew about, who flies a single-engine plane

onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes

into town, and inquires at every door

until he finds you asleep midafternoon

as you so often are during the unmerciful

hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.

It comes to the woman sweeping the street

with a birch broom, to the child

whose mother has passed out from drink.

It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing

a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker,

and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots

in the night.

It even comes to the boulder

in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,

to rain falling on the open sea,

to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

One new perception,
one fresh thought,
one act of surrender,
one change of heart,
one leap of faith,
can change your life forever.

 
- Robert Holden

The Revision By Aaron Bulman (excerpt)

I still liked anyothertime,anyotherplace. 

which means most
of my life, but it was now,
here, so I felt my life becoming sad.
and I was thinking this
too shall pass into later.
somewherelse. but I was getting sadder.
so I saw a new now and a new here, later.
and this now and this here
would be excluded from anyothertime
anyotherplace. later.

The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac (3) By Mary Oliver

I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you’re in it all the same.

so why not get started immediately.

I mean, belonging to it.
There is so much to admire, to weep over.

And to write music or poems about.

Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.

You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.
Or not.
I am speaking from the fortunate platform
of many years,
none of which, I think, I ever wasted.
Do you need a prod?
Do you need a little darkness to get you going?
Let me be urgent as a knife, then,
and remind you of Keats*,
so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,
he had a lifetime.

The Frog

BY HILAIRE BELLOC

Be kind and tender to the Frog,

   And do not call him names,

As ‘Slimy skin,’ or ‘Polly-wog,’

   Or likewise ‘Ugly James,’

Or ‘Gape-a-grin,’ or ‘Toad-gone-wrong,’   

   Or ‘Billy Bandy-knees’:

The Frog is justly sensitive

   To epithets like these.

No animal will more repay

   A treatment kind and fair;

At least so lonely people say

Who keep a frog (and, by the way,   

They are extremely rare).

The Yak

BY HILAIRE BELLOC

As a friend to the children commend me the Yak.   

   You will find it exactly the thing:

It will carry and fetch, you can ride on its back,   

   Or lead it about with a string.

The Tartar who dwells on the plains of Thibet   

   (A desolate region of snow)

Has for centuries made it a nursery pet,   

   And surely the Tartar should know!

Then tell your papa where the Yak can be got,   

   And if he is awfully rich

He will buy you the creature—or else he will not.

   (I cannot be positive which.)