Poems that you love

[ritwiksadhu33]

Taken from the Poetry Foundation website. Read this 3 years ago, iirc.

Autobiography in the Year 1952
BY YEHUDA AMICHAI
TRANSLATED BY BENJAMIN HARSHAV
My father built a great worry around me like a dock
Once I left it before I was finished
And he remained with his great, empty worry.
And my mother—like a tree on the shore
Between her arms outstretched for me.

And in '31 my hands were merry and small
And in '41 they learned to use a rifle
And when I loved my first love
My thoughts were like a bunch of colored balloons
And the girl's white hand clutched them all
With a thin string—and then let them fly.

And in '51 the movement of my life
Was like the movement of many slaves rowing a ship,
And the face of my father like the lantern at the end of a parting
       train,
And my mother closed all the clouds in her brown closet.
And I climbed up my street,
And the twentieth century was the blood in my veins,
Blood that wanted to go out to many wars,
Through many openings.
It pounds on my head from inside
And moves in angry waves to my heart.

But now, in the spring of '52, I see
More birds have returned than left last winter.
And I return down the slope of the mountain
To my room where the woman's body is heavy
And full of time.