Temporary Poem Of My Time

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Temporary Poem Of My Time
By Yehuda Amichai
Alon
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Temporary Poem of my time
Hebrew writing and Arabic writing go from east to
west, Latin writing, from west to east. Languages
are like cats You must not stroke their hair the
wrong way. The clouds come from the sea, the hot
wind from the desert, The trees bend in the
wind, And stones fly from all four winds, Into
all four winds. They throw stones, Throw this
land, one at the other, But the land always falls
back to the land. They throw the land, want to
get rid of it. Its stones, its soil, but you
can't get rid of it
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They throw stones, throw stones at me In 1936,
1938, 1948, 1988, Semites throw at Semites and
anti-Semites at anti-Semites, Evil men throw and
just men throw, Sinners throw and tempters
throw, Geologists throw and theologists
throw, Archaelogists throw and archhooligans
throw, Kidneys throw stones and gall bladders
throw, Head stones and forehead stones and the
heart of a stone, Stones shaped like a screaming
mouth And stones fitting your eyes Like a pair of
glasses, The past throws stones at the
future, And all of them fall on the
present. Weeping stones and laughing gravel
stones, Even God in the Bible threw stones, Even
the Urim and Tumim were thrown And got stuck in
the beastplate of justice, And Herod threw stones
and what came out was a Temple.
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Oh, the poem of stone sadness Oh, the poem
thrown on the stones Oh, the poem of thrown
stones. Is there in this land A stone that was
never thrown And never built and never
overturned And never uncovered and never
discovered And never screamed from a wall and
never discarded by the builders And never closed
on top of a grave and never lay under lovers And
never turned into a cornerstone? Please do not
throw any more stones, You are moving the
land, The holy, whole, open land, You are moving
it to the sea And the sea doesn't want it The sea
says, not in me.
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Please throw little stones, Throw snail fossils,
throw gravel, Justice or injustice from the
quarries of Migdal Tsedek, Throw soft stones,
throw sweet clods, Throw limestone, throw
clay, Throw sand of the seashore, Throw dust of
the desert, throw rust, Throw soil, throw
wind, Throw air, throw nothing Until your hands
are weary And the war is weary And even peace
will be weary and will be.
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Dates meanings
In 1936 the Arabic Rebellion began, and there
were attacks on Jewish settlements, on those
attacks, the Arabs used stones and guns.
In 1937 the Arab attacks from 1936 was being
stopped, and continued again in 1938.
In 1948 there was an assault against the Israeli
new country.
In 1988 the Arabs started the Intifada, attacks
with stones against the Israeli army and
citizens.
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some things that you should know
The Hebrew language, unlike the Latin language,
is written from right to left. As much as it
seems strange for you, for us it is pretty normal
to write from the right to the left and not from
the left to the right.
The Jews and the Arabic are called Semites, the
word Semite came from the bible. Noah had a son
named Shem, and from that name came the word
Semite. Today, Semite refers especially to the
Jews and the Moslem-Arabs, so when Yehuda Amichai
said that Semites throw on Semites, he meant that
The Arab-Semites throw on Jew-Semites.  
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Biblical meanings from the text
Urim and Thummim the stones which were laid on
the breast of the Great Cohen in the Temple.
Those stones assisted the Great Cohen. The
Cohenim were the people who worked with god,
telling the future. According to the flicker of
the stones, the Great Cohen combined the letters
and saw Gods answers to the questions, if to go
to war, or not.
The Second Temple of the Jews was built by the
order of Herod. The base of this great Temple was
built of stones, because there wasn't a lot of
metal or any other material that we use today to
build our houses, so he built all the walls and
the base of the temple from stones.
And never screamed from the wall is a line
which is taken from the bible. The line is
connected to the word stone, and it means that
something really bad is going to happen, so bad,
than even the stones will scream. And the line
"and never discarded by the builders is also
connected to the bible. It is a line that also
refers to the word stone. The meaning of the line
is that the builders will say that a stone is
worth nothing, but at the end, this stone will be
at the start of the building. It means that even
the thing we think is not valuable will be the
most expensive at the end.
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What does Yehuda Amichai want to tell us
when he writes the poem?
Amichai complains in the poem about the fighting
in the world. He would like to let us understand
that all the different people are fighting, and
all the similar people are fighting, and everyone
fights, and he complains about it, so he would
like to tell us that the throwing began in the
bible, long before our time. Stones were being
used as an important weapon in the bible. They
were used by men who lived on these times. People
died because they were throwing stones on each
other, like David killed Goliath, the Palestine
demon, with stones.
Amichai complains about the throwing through the
whole poem but he figures out that if we won't
throw stones, or fight so hard, and we will throw
or fight in lower levels of ways, until we will
fight with the air, the war will be tired, and
then the peace will come when everything is
weary, and as he says, and weary it will
be. Amichai used the sarcastic way to describe
all who make the wars in our world, Semites to
anti-Semites and sinners to tempters and all the
rest.
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