For Yehuda Amichai
“If I try to be like him, who will be like me?”—Yiddish proverb
Not for him and his people alone
but for all who loved that rocky land
Everybody everybody sing it!
No chosen and unchosen but everybody chosen
Sing it!
All families living under tiled rooftops
Or flat roofs with strung clotheslines
T-shirts bedsheets flags of surrender
I show you my cloth I live the way you live
All the cousins second cousins
extra cousins unknown cousins
No choice everyone a cousin
peace better than hurtful moves
better better sing it!
Not rain that fell on a few houses only
Not sun that shone on a few favored yards
Not air in small containers only for some lungs
Double peace multiplied
Outside inside every ancient space
every sleek new room with tall windows
Peace for sheep and goats grazing in meadows
(They already have it)
Peace for buckets waiting on doorsteps
Peace in brown eggs lined on counters waiting to be
cracked
Peace in skillets and spatulas
We met at the corner went to his home for
breakfast
He said, I would never have taken your father’s
home!
I could never have lived in a stolen Arab home!
The great voice of the Jewish people said this to
my face
our conversation
where streets converged