In Heaven (in parentheses) there's no star (in quotes)
I haven't sung to thee, Jerusalem, too many long black coats,
though I've nought against religion, but mine's another thing,
instead of saying prayers, my religion sings.
Too many hotels and too little city,
stone walls moan that the place is drab and gritty.
Though they dub thee "the golden," it's a dull sort of gold,
like a sunset that's two or three thousand years old,
a cloud in the trousers, a genuine antique.
They come here not to live; it's dying they seek.
They've choked thee on every mount, every hill,
with wastelands and suburbs - not as nature will.
The Valley of the Cross has risen from the depths,
But thanks to the genius of a "brilliant" architect
somehow Mount Scopus has suddenly gone under;
only in this city are we privy to such wonder.
How then, indeed, unto thee shall we sing
when I haven't got a harp and all of my strings
are back in Tel Aviv or in Haifa by the sea.
In the place where tradition puts the Hill of Shouts
they won't hear poems but they will see clouts
which land here and there as if out of thin air -
no one's yet beaten swords into a ploughshare.
Solace lies not in yeshivas, churches, mosques
for those who seek to quarrel and for the have-nots.
So, yes, back in the fifties, I did learn to love
thy beauty, Jerusalem, which is almost from above
but now I'm in my sixties - not the year, but the decade
and thou hast Yad Vashem and the Chief Rabbinate
but no trace of what was, and what might remain,
or I cannot find it as a tourist, today.
Rest thee then, O Zion, in peace upon thy bed.
My friend, Amichai, remember, does love thee yet.
And forget not this, Mother City of my soul:
there's no heart as broken as the heart which is whole.
Translated by Vivian Eden
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