Memorial day for the war dead. Add now
the grief of all your losses to their grief,
even of a woman that has left you. Mix
sorrow with sorrow, like time-saving history,
which stacks holiday and sacrifice and mourning
on one day for easy, convenient memory.
Oh, sweet world soaked, like bread,
in sweet milk for the terrible toothless God.
"Behind all this some great happiness is hiding."
No use to weep inside and to scream outside.
Behind all this perhaps some great happiness is hiding.
Memorial day. Bitter salt is dressed up
as a little girl with flowers.
The streets are cordoned off with ropes,
for the marching together of the living and the dead.
Children with a grief not their own march slowly,
like stepping over broken glass.
The flautist's mouth will stay like that for many days.
A dead soldier swims above little heads
with the swimming movements of the dead,
with the ancient error the dead have
about the place of the living water.
A flag loses contact with reality and flies off.
A shopwindow is decorated with
dresses of beautiful women, in blue and white.
And everything in three languages:
Hebrew, Arabic, and Death.
A great and royal animal is dying
all through the night under the jasmine
tree with a constant stare at the world.
A man whose son died in the war walks in the street
like a woman with a dead embryo in her womb.
"Behind all this some great happiness is hiding."
the grief of all your losses to their grief,
even of a woman that has left you. Mix
sorrow with sorrow, like time-saving history,
which stacks holiday and sacrifice and mourning
on one day for easy, convenient memory.
Oh, sweet world soaked, like bread,
in sweet milk for the terrible toothless God.
"Behind all this some great happiness is hiding."
No use to weep inside and to scream outside.
Behind all this perhaps some great happiness is hiding.
Memorial day. Bitter salt is dressed up
as a little girl with flowers.
The streets are cordoned off with ropes,
for the marching together of the living and the dead.
Children with a grief not their own march slowly,
like stepping over broken glass.
The flautist's mouth will stay like that for many days.
A dead soldier swims above little heads
with the swimming movements of the dead,
with the ancient error the dead have
about the place of the living water.
A flag loses contact with reality and flies off.
A shopwindow is decorated with
dresses of beautiful women, in blue and white.
And everything in three languages:
Hebrew, Arabic, and Death.
A great and royal animal is dying
all through the night under the jasmine
tree with a constant stare at the world.
A man whose son died in the war walks in the street
like a woman with a dead embryo in her womb.
"Behind all this some great happiness is hiding."
Analysis
This poem is a reflection of the Israeli Memorial Day "which stacks holiday and sacrifice and mourning on one day" referring to the Holocaust Remembrance Day, Memorial Day, and Independence Day are all within a couple days of each other. Amichai addresses his depression and sadness through rhythm "add now the grief of all your losses to their grief" this gives a sense him trying to drag the reader along. in this stanza I feel as if Yehuda is adding a sensory image and creating an illusion in the readers mind with descriptive and strong vocabulary and descriptions.
'Oh, sweet world soaked, like bread, in sweet milk for the terrible toothless God', 'soaked world' is reference to the blood dashing everywhere after a war, 'toothless god' meaning that the god was swallowing them upward with the soft bright light after they died, but however the god doesn't have teeth, therefore is was gentle so the dead peoples bodies weren't damaged and were left for rest. You can also take 'oh, sweet world soaked' as a reference to the tears shred for the war, which he then follows up with two references to weeping 'bitter salt'.
'Children with a grief not their own' is the example of how both women and men who turned eighteen had to go into mandatory army service. Yehuda puts his cultural background within these two stanzas, he talks about Jewish funerals 'a dead soldier swims above little heads/ with the swimming movements of the dead' this tells you about how Jewish funerals were traditional done compared to our type of funeral, which trust me aren't nearly as beautiful.
The colour of the dresses in stanza five are blue and white which usurpingly are the same colours as the Israeli flag which had flown off 'a flag loses contact with reality and flies of', 'a shopwindow is decorated with dresses of beautiful women, in blue and white. And everything in three languages Hebrew, Arabic, and Death' this shows the official languages spoken in Israeli with the constant conflict of war in Death.
The last stanza is completely unexpected Amichai 'like a women with a dead embryo in her womb this creates imagery for instance a picture frame in your head. the then comforts you by saying 'behind all this some great happiness is hiding' giving closure to the readers.
'Oh, sweet world soaked, like bread, in sweet milk for the terrible toothless God', 'soaked world' is reference to the blood dashing everywhere after a war, 'toothless god' meaning that the god was swallowing them upward with the soft bright light after they died, but however the god doesn't have teeth, therefore is was gentle so the dead peoples bodies weren't damaged and were left for rest. You can also take 'oh, sweet world soaked' as a reference to the tears shred for the war, which he then follows up with two references to weeping 'bitter salt'.
'Children with a grief not their own' is the example of how both women and men who turned eighteen had to go into mandatory army service. Yehuda puts his cultural background within these two stanzas, he talks about Jewish funerals 'a dead soldier swims above little heads/ with the swimming movements of the dead' this tells you about how Jewish funerals were traditional done compared to our type of funeral, which trust me aren't nearly as beautiful.
The colour of the dresses in stanza five are blue and white which usurpingly are the same colours as the Israeli flag which had flown off 'a flag loses contact with reality and flies of', 'a shopwindow is decorated with dresses of beautiful women, in blue and white. And everything in three languages Hebrew, Arabic, and Death' this shows the official languages spoken in Israeli with the constant conflict of war in Death.
The last stanza is completely unexpected Amichai 'like a women with a dead embryo in her womb this creates imagery for instance a picture frame in your head. the then comforts you by saying 'behind all this some great happiness is hiding' giving closure to the readers.
YehudaAmichai
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BiographyAmichai was born in 1924, Germany, but with his family at the age of twelve journeyed to Palestine. In 1948 Yehuda went to fight in the Israeli defense forces. When he returned he attended the Hebrew university and taught seminars and later Yale and University of California Berkeley. After his return he suffered for rigors and memories of extreme horror from his service in World War II, the war was woven into his poems although he is never ideological. Yehuda's poems were translated into forty different languages and is recognized as one of the Israel's finest poets. All Yehuda's poems are political "This is because real poems deal with a human response to reality, and politics is part of reality, history in the making, even if a poet writes about sitting in a glass house drinking tea, it reflects politics" he says. Yehuda dies in Jerusalem on September 22, 2000.
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Context
Memorial Day for the War Dead refers to Yom HaZikaron, the Israeli Memorial Day, "which stacks holiday and sacrifice and mourning on one day" refers to that Independence Day, Holocaust Remembrance day and Memorial Day are within a few days of each other, the 'holiday' is the demonstration of Independence, 'sacrifice' being Holocaust Remembrance day and the 'mourning' being Memorial Day. Yehuda has dedicated this poem into remembering the ones who fought for his country, including himself. Through his trauma and grieving he brought the world a poem how the soldiers and each person who suffered in the war needed commemorating.
Poetic Techniques
Amichai has used a wide range of techniques throughout the stanzas. Rhyming in the second line of the first stanza shows his depression or sadness, this instantly grabs readers attention bringing them further into the poem. Yehuda also uses references "oh, sweet world soaked" this is a reference to tears which is followed up by another reference "bitter salt", these are both examples of weeping. The use of a simile in the third and fourth line of stanza one is evident, he is comparing the sorrow that many have shared across the world to it ending up in the history books. This poem shows a lot of deep historical and cultural detail, you see this when Yehuda describes his country and how Jewish people traditionally do 'funerals', you will see that Jewish funerals are completely different from our original Australian/ American funerals. you might have also noticed that these stanzas have a double meaning, which quite frankly isn't really shocking because what's good writing without the hidden meanings. the colours of the dresses in the shop keeper's window are blue and white which how coincidently are the same colours as the Israeli flag, which might I add has flown away. The two most commonly spoken languages in Israel are Hebrew and Arabic and with the constant language of conflict and war in Death. Hopefully something magical will appear after all the pain and tragic occurrences or something at least better after all the end of the Holocaust the state of Israel was formed.