A Man In His Life

Yehuda Amichai 1924 (Würzburg) – 2000 (Israel)



A man doesn't have time in his life
to have time for everything.
He doesn't have seasons enough to have
a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes
Was wrong about that.
  
A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment,
to laugh and cry with the same eyes,
with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them,
to make love in war and war in love.
And to hate and forgive and remember and forget,
to arrange and confuse, to eat and to digest what history
takes years and years to do.
  
A man doesn't have time.
When he loses he seeks, when he finds
he forgets, when he forgets he loves, when he loves he begins to forget.
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Submitted on August 03, 2020

Modified on March 29, 2023

38 sec read
70

Quick analysis:

Scheme XXXAX XAXXBXX XAB
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 612
Words 125
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 5, 7, 3

Yehuda Amichai

Yehuda Amichai (‎3 May 1924 – 22 September 2000) was an Israeli poet. more…

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