My first year in graduate school I was fortunate enough to see the great Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai read at the University of Cincinnati. I don’t think I understood at that moment just what a gift that was, but when his poems cross my days I always think that I was lucky indeed to get to experience him in person in the final years of his life. This poem is one for aging, and for memory, and perhaps for the possibility of a late discovery in the hard year that was 2020.
“But the world is beautifully made for doing good
and for resting, like a park bench.”
Artwork by Courtney Tucker, poetry collaborator extraordinaire