Yehuda Amichai

A flock of sheep near the airport or a high voltage generator beside the orchard: these combinations open up my life like a wound, but they also heal it. That's why my feelings always come in twos.

Now and then, I remember you in timesUnbelievable. And in places not made for memoryBut for the transient, the passing that does not remain.

I believe with perfect faith that at this very momentmillions of human beings are standing at crossroadsand intersections, in jungles and deserts,showing each other where to turn, what the right way is,which direction. They explain exactly where to go,what is the quickest way to get there, when to stopand ask again. There, over there. The secondturnoff, not the first, and from there left or right,near the white house, by the oak tree.They explain with excited voices, with a wave of the handand a nod of the head: There, over there, not that there, the other there,as in some ancient rite. This too is a new religion.I believe with perfect faith that at this very moment.

I was a very religious child - I went to synagogue at least once, sometimes twice, a day. And I remember my religiousness as good - I think religion is good for children, especially educated children, because it allows for imagination, a whole imaginative world apart from the practical world.

Try to remember some details. For the worldis filled with people who were torn from their sleepwith no one to mend the tear,and unlike wild beasts they liveeach in his lonely hiding place and they dietogether on battlefieldsand in hospitals.And the earth will swallow all of them,good and evil together, like the followers of Korah,all of them in their rebellion against death,their mouths open till the last moment,praising and cursing in a singlehowl. Try, tryto remember some details.