Yehuda Amichai

Um pouco de poesia. Sempre.

What kind of man?

"What kind of man are you?" people ask me.
I am a man with a complex network of pipes in my soul,
sophisticated machineries of emotion
and a precisely-monitored memory system
of the late twentieth century,
but with an old body from ancient days
and a God more obsolete even than my body.

I am a man for the surface of the earth.
Deep places, pits and holes in the ground
make me nervous. Tall buildings
and mountaintops terrify me.

I am not like a piercing fork
nor a cutting knife nor a scooping spoon
nor a flat, wily spatula that sneaks in from underneath.
At most I'm a heavy and clumsy pestle
that mashes good and evil together
for the sake of a little flavor,
a little fragrance.

Guideposts don't tell me where to go.
I conduct my business quietly, diligently,
as if carrying out a long will that began to be written
the moment I was born.

Now I am standing on the sidewalk,
weary, leaning on a parking meter.
I can stand here for free, my own man.

I'm not a car, I'm a human being,
a man-god, a god-man
whose days are numbered. Hallelujah.