The Place Where We Are Right
Written by Yehuda Amichai; translated by Stephen Mitchell
From the place where we are right
flowers will never grow
in the spring.
The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.
But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
where the ruined
house once stood.
I really like this poem. I've thought about it a lot the last few days.
As a person who tends to think in rights and wrongs, it's easy when you know what's right and you're doing it to stand hard and fast, to trample down the potential for growth and for love and for happiness, turn it into the hard red clay soil of North Texas.
But I love how Amichai points that out, that being right is fine and good, but goodness, I think, is a superior way to go. That's where the doubts and loves come in, that dig up the world like those moles, like plowing through, breaking up the hard ground, giving the chance for life to grow, for happiness to thrive. So, it's less about asserting who's right and wrong and drawing those lines, and more about embracing people and encouraging them to thrive and to grow.
That's when the whisper starts, little seedling blossoms in the broken ground.
And the thing that was trampled down, the ruined house, it's brought back to life, small, delicate. And when tended to with kindness can blossom. And what was once a meadow full of energy and good can become that again.
But we have to be careful about stomping too hard from our place of right.
#100DaysToOffload #Writing #poetry
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