Yehuda Amichai, "Advanced Training for Angels"
ADVANCED TRAINING FOR ANGELS
After the training on round targets
(my life is round like them,
with the black bull's-eye of my childhood
in the center, where I'm vulnerable),
after the training on round targets,
training with dummy men: a head
like a head. A man fleeing.
Or people passing slowly:
a child playing, a man seated in his chair,
my love, at her window,
all passing slowly before the riflemen
on the hill of the broken red
tiles at the edge of the world.
YEHUDA AMICHAI
Translated from the Hebrew by Harold Schimmel
*
Al-Qaeda mass graves found near Iraqi farming village (RFE/RL, 31 March):
'Villagers digging in an abandoned pomegranate orchard in the Diyala River Valley have unearthed the remains of at least 52 people murdered by Al-Qaeda in Iraq during its two-year reign of terror in the area.'
After the training on round targets
(my life is round like them,
with the black bull's-eye of my childhood
in the center, where I'm vulnerable),
after the training on round targets,
training with dummy men: a head
like a head. A man fleeing.
Or people passing slowly:
a child playing, a man seated in his chair,
my love, at her window,
all passing slowly before the riflemen
on the hill of the broken red
tiles at the edge of the world.
YEHUDA AMICHAI
Translated from the Hebrew by Harold Schimmel
*
Al-Qaeda mass graves found near Iraqi farming village (RFE/RL, 31 March):
'Villagers digging in an abandoned pomegranate orchard in the Diyala River Valley have unearthed the remains of at least 52 people murdered by Al-Qaeda in Iraq during its two-year reign of terror in the area.'