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of Summer in the Judean Mountains
End
of summer in the Judean mountains. The ground lies there
As last year's rain left in. The rifle range on the
slope
Is silent no, riddled targets were left behind
Like human beings. An olds man cries out with a gaping
mouth
About the loss of land and flesh, and his young grandson
Puts his head down on the old man's knees
And doesn't understand.
Beyond
them, some pretty girls are sitting on a rock
Like seven lawyers
To defend the summer and administer its estate.
And
a bit farther, near a dark cave there's a fig tree,
That brothel were ripe figs
Couple with wasps and are split to death.
There is laughter that isn't burnt, weeping that isn't
dried out.
And a deep stillness everywhere
But a great love begins here, sometimes,
With the sound of dry branches snapping in the dead
forest.
Yehuda
Amichai
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Mount
Moriah is an elongated stretch of land running north-south
and lying between Kidron Valley and "Hagai" Valley,
between Mount Zion to the west and the Mount of Olives
to the east in Jerusalem, Israel.
The
Jebusite "Zion" lay on the southern slope of Mount Moriah,
above the Gihon Spring. After conquering the city and
making it his capital, King David renamed it for himself:
the "City of David". Later David paid full value for
the northern area of the summit of Mount Moriah. The
mountain was considered very holy, many of the traditions
which had sprung up around it dating its sacred status
all the way back to the Creation. The best-known tradition
related to Mount Moriah is the Binding of Isaac for
sacrifice by his father Abraham (Genesis 22).
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Yehuda
Amichai was born in Germany to a religiously observant
family, Amichai and his family emigrated to Eretz Yisrael
in 1935, living briefly in Petach Tikvah before settling
in Jerusalem. In World War II he fought with the Jewish
Brigade of the British Army, and upon his discharge
in 1946, he joined the Palmach. During the War of Independence
he fought in the Negev, on the southern front. Following
the war, Amichai attended Hebrew University, studying
Biblical texts and Hebrew literature, and then taught
in secondary schools. Amichai's first volume of poetry,
Achshav Uve-Yamim HaAharim ("Now and in Other
Days") was published in 1955 and aroused serious interest
in readers and critics alike. He was awarded the Israel
Prize in 1982, which heralded "the revolutionary change
in poetry's language" that the poet had begun through
his work. Amichai's canon is also impressive for the
volume of work it encompasses, and many individual books
of poetry appeared in rapid succession, as well as Collected
Poems (1963) and Selected Works of 1981.
Shirei Yerushalayim ("Poems of Jerusalem," 1987)
is a bilingual edition accompanied by photographs of
the city, a model Amichai used again in 1992 for other
poems, scenes, and photos. In addition to his numerous
volumes of poetry, he has written short stories, two
novels, radio sketches, and children's literature. He
died in 2000.
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