false 186492 2 In the centerpiece of <I>Open Closed Open</I>, the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai ponders his most treasured keepsake, "a triangular fragment of stone from a Jewish graveyard destroyed / many generations ago." This object is, needless to say, more than a souvenir: throughout the zigzagging lines of "The Amen Stone," it allows Amichai to reconstruct bits and pieces of the past, "fragment to fragment, / like the resurrection of the dead, a mosaic, / a jigsaw puzzle. Child's play." The ensuing narrative leads the poet directly into his nation's history. Yet this is not merely a political but a personal resurrection, for Amichai sees himself as the stone's well-weathered counterpart, a byproduct of time. And he, too, has experienced an inevitable erosion: "Jewish History and World History / grind me between them like two grindstones / sometimes to a powder." <p> Throughout the collection, Amichai returns again and again to this convergence. In "Once I Wrote 'Now and in Other Days.' Thus Glory Passes, Thus the Psalms Pass," for example, he chronicles the destruction of Huleh swamp, an open ecosystem drained by the Israeli government during the 1950s to fight malaria and provide arable land: <blockquote> Now half a century later they are filling it with water again<br> because it was a mistake. Perhaps my entire life<br> I've been living a mistake<br> </blockquote> Indeed, Amichai's misgivings seem to extend to the very foundations of the modern Israeli state. Might not the "bright-colored birds" who fled the swamp "for their lives" be figures for the displaced Palestinians? Huleh, we learn, was eventually restored. But sowing the seeds of peace is as precarious an enterprise as rebuilding a fragile ecosystem. <p> Elsewhere, "My Son Was Drafted" records a father's concern and fear for his military-age child. Amichai wishes his son were joining an army without a war, where soldiers serve as decorations around monuments, where the ornate and impractical replace the camouflaged and tactical. But here, too, the father has a few spiritual heirlooms to pass on to his son, which incidentally allow him to open up yet another closed system: <blockquote> I would like to add two more commandments to the ten:<br> the Eleventh Commandment: "Thou shalt not change,"<br> and the Twelfth Commandment "Thou shalt change. You will change."<br> My dead father added those for me.<br> </blockquote> A man, Amichai suggests, is more pliable once he has been opened up, refreshed, newly defined. Cultures, alas, are not so flexible. But the rich language of <I>Open Closed Open</I>, which has been meticulously translated by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld, holds out the hope that nations, too, might submit to the Twelfth Commandment. <I>--Ryan Kuykendall</I> 862144 2000 Open Closed Open: Poems total:51|5:31|4:13|3:4|2:3|1:0| 51 225 79 9 5 3 false false Tue Nov 25 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Oct 30 05:45:25 -0700 2008 Tue Nov 25 05:35:05 -0800 2008 more...]]> 2 0 true false Wed Apr 16 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 02 10:39:56 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 23 14:21:05 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Jun 12 16:25:46 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 12 16:27:13 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Tue Mar 17 16:49:40 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 17 16:52:36 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Dec 09 10:51:59 -0800 2007 Sun Dec 09 10:54:14 -0800 2007 4 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue Dec 25 20:57:37 -0800 2007 Tue Dec 25 20:58:59 -0800 2007 5 0 false false Wed Feb 13 19:35:06 -0800 2008 Wed Feb 13 19:35:35 -0800 2008 4 0 false false Sat Oct 25 19:23:31 -0700 2008 Sat Oct 25 19:24:09 -0700 2008 2 0 false false Mon Mar 24 22:05:53 -0700 2008 Thu Mar 27 16:12:33 -0700 2008 2 0 false false Tue Nov 03 20:13:38 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 03 20:13:38 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Tue Oct 27 13:08:37 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 27 13:08:37 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Oct 23 12:25:11 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 23 12:25:16 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Fri Sep 04 22:04:24 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 04 22:04:24 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Aug 21 08:19:24 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 21 08:19:24 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Thu Jul 23 11:37:16 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 23 11:37:16 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Wed Jul 15 19:48:13 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 15 19:48:13 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Mon Jul 13 10:14:57 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 13 10:14:57 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Tue Jun 30 18:27:00 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 30 18:27:00 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Fri Jun 26 14:11:20 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 26 14:11:20 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Jun 12 17:31:34 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 12 17:31:34 -0700 2009