Good Grief
A Discussion into English of
Yehudah Amichai's "Like the Interior Walls of a House"
By Joseph Lowin  

It's not that he speaks for us. It's that he speaks to us that makes Yehuda Amichai our shaliah tsibbur, poetic emissary. No book of his poems demonstrates that talent more clearly than his collection Poems of Jerusalem (1987), which has given us, to cite one example, the iconic portrait of "the man with baskets" - who will never again serve as a point de repиre for tourist guides. (See IvritNow, Vol. III, No.1)

The poem reproduced here, "Like the Interior Wall of a House," speaks directly to the human condition. One can tell from the first verse, however, that while we are ensconced in reality, we are at the same time completely enclosed in the realm of art.

Anyone who has studied even one poem knows the power of the word "like." Not only does it introduce a simile; it also transforms the reader's field of vision from exterior reality to an inner world. The poem is not about a building destroyed by war that reveals its inner walls to the outside world. It is about a humanity that is all exterior. (1) Like the interior wall of a house (2) that has become its exterior wall after wars and destruction, (3) So I found myself all of a sudden. And what do the interior walls of devastation have to do with humanity? Not exactly what one would think.

The lack of punctuation at the end of verse 3 leads us to believe that verse 4 belongs to the first stanza as well. But perhaps not. Perhaps verse 4 is the beginning of a new thought that should be read as follows: (4) And too early in my life, I almost forgot (5) what it is to be inside. It no longer hurts. The pain caused by self-revelation reminds the speaker of former feelings that he no longer experiences. (6) I no longer love. And both distance and proximity, (7) both of them, remain at a great-and═ equal-distance. Now, he says, nothing is going on inside me except the interior rhyme of ko'ev and═ ohev in verses 5 and 6, neither pain nor love. In addition, at this stage in his life, it's all the same to him. Indifference has set in.

At first glance, the placement of the next stanza here is bewildering and problematic. (8) I have never taken true account of what happens to colors. What do these colors and shadings have to do with the speaker's present state of mind? What do they have to do with the human condition? (9) Their verdict is like the verdict of men: Light blue dozes (10) in the memory of the dark blue of night. Pallor groans (11) in a red dream. The wind carries fragrances (12) from afar, and inside the wind there is no odor. The leaves of the Squill (13) die a long time before they flower into white, (14) so that it will not know (15) either of their springtime verdure or of love's deep darkness. Sure, there is the poetic technique called synesthesia (literally, sensing together), where the poet smells red, sees cold, or tastes sound. But is that truly what is going on here?

Today, the speaker asserts, everything we see on the outside is pale: pallor, light blue, an odorless wind, white leaves. These pale colors and odors of the surface no longer "remember" that they were once deep and pungent. And yet, the difference, as the poet has already said in verses 6-7, is not as great as it seems. In lines 11-12, the poet reinforces this idea by playing on the similarity of sound among re'ah (odor), ru'ah (wind), and even rahok (distant).

In the last stanza, the poet turns liturgical, as is often Amichai's habit, taking his cue from and turning on its head, the first verse in Psalm 121: "I shall lift my eyes to the mountains; whence will my succor come?" Changing the verb "to lift" into the present tense, the poet brings the verse down to earth. (16) I lift my eyes to the mountains. I understand now (17) what it is "to lift" one's eyes. What a heavy burden (18) it is. The poet does not seem interested in succor from heaven but rather in understanding the human condition. Why is it so painful? What exactly is this pain? The poet answers these questions with a verb-less sentence that expresses not an action in the present or past, but a timeless feeling. But the strong longings, (19) the-pain-of-no-longer-being-inside, forever.

The moment of recognition has arrived. Feeling grief may not be good, concludes Amichai. But it is certainly better than the grief felt when one has no feeling at all.

And all this from a building in ruins.