Ein Yahav

Yehuda Amichai

Listen (to Chana Bloch read)

A night drive to Ein Yahav in the Arava Desert,
a drive in the rain. Yes, in the rain.
There I met people who grow date palms,
there I saw tamarisk trees and risk trees,
there I saw hope barbed as barbed wire.
And I said to myself: That's true, hope needs to be
like barbed wire to keep out despair,
hope must be a mine field.

Chana Bloch reads her translation of the hebrew poem by Yehuda Amichai. Amichai is considered one of the greatest modern Israeli poets. My bias toward poets who write about the ordinary and mudane makes him one of my favourites.