The Place Where We Are Right

From the place where we are right
flowers will never grow
in the spring

The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.

But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole, a plough.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
where the ruined
house once stood.


Yehuda Amichai
translated from the Hebrew by Stephen Mitchell

In: Essential Poems, from the Staying Alive Trilogy
edited by Neil Astley