North of San Francisco - Yehuda Amichai

[Larry Robinson]

North of San Francisco

Here the soft hills touch the ocean
like one eternity touching another
and the cows grazing on them
ignore us, like angels.
Even the scent of ripe melon in the cellar
is a prophecy of peace.

The darkness doesn’t war against the light,
it carries us forward
to another light, and the only pain
is the pain of not staying here.

In my land, called holy,
they won’t let eternity be;
they’ve divided it into little religions,
zoned it for God-zones,
broken it into fragments of history,
sharp and wounding unto death.
And they’ve turned its tranquil distances
into a closeness convulsing with the pain of the present.

On the beach at Bolinas, at the foot of the wooden steps,
I saw some girls lying in the sand bare-bottomed.
their heads bowed, drunk
on the kingdom everlasting,
their souls like doors
closing and opening
closing and opening inside them
to the rhythm of the surf.

	- Yehuda Amichai
	(Translated by Chana Block)