An Arab Shepherd Is Searching For His Goat On Mount Zion Poem by Yehuda Amichai

An Arab Shepherd Is Searching For His Goat On Mount Zion

Rating: 3.3


An Arab shepherd is searching for his goat on Mount Zion
And on the opposite hill I am searching for my little boy.
An Arab shepherd and a Jewish father
Both in their temporary failure.
Our two voices met above
The Sultan's Pool in the valley between us.
Neither of us wants the boy or the goat
To get caught in the wheels
Of the "Had Gadya" machine.

Afterward we found them among the bushes,
And our voices came back inside us
Laughing and crying.

Searching for a goat or for a child has always been
The beginning of a new religion in these mountains.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Michael 04 July 2018

Nice poem though I feet religion being temporal here though not seemingly by the author but was there an opportunity missed here if you would take a second look, I look at the mastery had the Arab been looking for a lamb. I think the writer may have restled with this, by calling him a shepherd, not a goathurder. But maybe a lamb being on the same generational level as the Jewish mans boy left a further problem, not to me but the author

0 0 Reply
Brian Jani 13 May 2014

Yehuda Amazing poetic skills here

2 1 Reply
Cantrell Dicky 08 March 2006

I loved this very much and was touched buy it's ending A very good piece

4 2 Reply
Yehuda Amichai

Yehuda Amichai

Würzburg / Germany
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