Tourists by Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000)
Visits of condolence is all we get from them.
They squat at the
Holocaust Memorial,
They put on grave faces at the Wailing Wall
And they
laugh behind heavy curtains
In their hotels.
They have their pictures
taken
Together with our famous dead
At Rachel's Tomb and Herzl's
Tomb
And on Ammunition Hill.
They weep over our sweet boys
And lust
after our tough girls
And hang up their underwear
To dry quickly
In
cool, blue bathrooms.
Once I sat on the steps by a gate at David's
Tower,
I placed my two heavy baskets at my side. A group of tourists
was
standing around their guide and I became their target marker. "You see
that
man with the baskets? Just right of his head there's an arch
from the Roman
period. Just right of his head." "But he's moving, he's moving!"
I said to
myself: redemption will come only if their guide tells them,
"You see that
arch from the Roman period? It's not important: but next to it,
left and down
a bit, there sits a man who's bought fruit and vegetables for his
family."
Passport by Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008)
They did not recognize me in the shadows
that suck away my face color in the passport.
To them my wound was an exhibit
like tourists who love to take photographs.
They did not recognize me.
Hi, don't leave
my hand's palm without sun, so the trees
can recognize me.
The songs of the rains recognize me
Don't leave me like a pale moon!
All the birds that followed my palm
to the doors of the distant airport
All the wheatfields
All the prisons
All the white tombs
All the wired borders
All the waved handkerchiefs
All the eyes
Were with me,
But they dropped them from my passport.
Stripped of my name and what I am?
On soil I nourished with my own hands?
Right now Job is screaming from the sky:
"Don't take me again as an example!"
Oh gentlemen and Prophets,
Don't ask the trees for their names
Don't ask the valleys who their mother is.
From my forehead bursts the sword of light
and from my hand springs the water of the river...
All the hearts of the people are my identity.
So go ahead and take my passport.
Moments by Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)
If I were able to live my life again,
I would try to make more
mistakes,
I would not try to be so perfect
and try to be more
relaxed.
I would be more foolish than I've been
and try to take few things
seriously
I would be less hygienic.
I would take more risks,
and I
would also take more vacations,
contemplate more sunsets,
climb more
mountains, swim more rivers.
I would go to more places where I've never
been,
I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans,
I would have more real
problems and less imaginary ones
I was one of those people that lived
sensibly
and prolifically each minute of his life;
Of course I had
moments of happiness.
If I could go back I would try
to have only good
moments.
Because if you didn't know, of that is life made:
only of
moments; Don't lose the now.
I was one of those that never
went
anywhere without a thermometer,
a hot-water bottle,
an umbrella, and a
parachute;
If I could live again, I would travel lighter.
If I could live
again,
I would begin to walk barefoot from the beginning of spring
and I
would continue barefoot until autumn ends.
I would take more cart rides,
contemplate more dawns,
and play with more children,
If I had another
life ahead of me.
But I am 85,
and I know that I am going to
die.
Ithaca by Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933)
As you set out for
Ithaca
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of
discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon- don't be afraid of
them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep
your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit
and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon- you won't
encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your
soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope the voyage is a long one.
May
there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you
come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading
stations to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and
ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind-
as many sensual perfumes as you
can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge
from their scholars.
Keep Ithaca always in your mind.
Arriving there
is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better
if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the
island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaca
to make you rich.
Ithaca gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her
you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And
if you find her poor, Ithaca won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have
become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these
Ithacas mean.
Translated by Edmund Keeley/ Phillip Sherrard
The Traveller by Maya Angelou (1928-2014)
Byways and bygone
And lone nights long
Sun rays and sea waves
And star and stone
Manless and friendless
No cave my home
This is my torture
My long nights, lone
We And They by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
Father, Mother, and Me,
Sister and Auntie say
All the people like us are We,
And every one else is They.
And They live over the sea,
While We live over the way,
But-would you believe it?-They look upon We
As only a sort of They!
We eat pork and beef
With cow-horn-handled knives.
They who gobble Their rice off a leaf
Are horrified out of Their lives;
And They who live up a tree,
And feast on grubs and clay,
(Isn't it scandalous?) look upon We
As a simply disgusting They!
We shoot birds with a gun.
They stick lions with spears.
Their full-dress is un-.
We dress up to Our ears.
They like Their friends for tea.
We like Our friends to stay;
And, after all that, They look upon We
As an utterly ignorant They
We eat kitcheny food.
We have doors that latch.
They drink milk or blood,
Under an open thatch.
We have Doctors to fee.
They have Wizards to pay.
And (impudent heathen!) They look upon We
As a quite impossible They!
All good people agree,
And all good people say,
All nice people, like Us, are We
And every one else is They
But if you cross over the sea,
Instead of over the way,
You may end by (think of it!) looking on We
As only a sort of They!
Poems of the Journey's End by Leah Goldberg (1911-1970)
1
The road is so pretty - says the boy.
the road is so rough - says the youth.
The road is so long - says the man.
An elder sits by the wayside to rest.
Twilight dyes his hoariness gold and ruby,
grass glistens beneath his feet with the evening dew,
Overhead, the final bird of the day sings-
Do you remember how pretty, how rough, how long was your road?
2
You once said: day follows day, night follows night.
The days come and come - you said in your heart.
You saw dusks and sunrises at your window
and thought: There is nothing new under the sun.
Now that you have become old and hoary,
And your days are few, yet precious.
You know: every day is like the last under the sun.
You know: every day is new under the sun.
3.
Teach me, God, to bless and to praise
the mystery of the withered leaf and the ripe pear,
and this freedom: to see, to feel, to smell,
to know, to long, to fail.
Teach my lips devotion and a song of praise
At your renewed times - each night and day,
So my day will not be like all my yesterdays,
So I will not be numbed by my day-to-day.
Translated by Yaniv Belhassen
The Guest House by Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (1207-1273)
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Translated by Coleman Barks
A quote from Walden by Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
Direct your eye inward, and you'll find
A thousand regions in your mind
Yet undiscovered. Travel them, and be
Expert in home-cosmography.