I never liked poetry... (in which I engage in a major blog faux pas)

I've never enjoyed reading poetry. It's always seemed really pretentious if its current, really boring if its classic. And I have this image of poetry slams, which truly are what my version of hell would be if I believed in hell. So I've avoided it. Except for one poet, and only because I got the book as a birthday present from someone who meant a lot to me that I treated like dirt because of age, insecurity, stupidity, and bad choices. He gave me a book of poetry by Yehuda Amichai, a poet he discovered during his three years in the Israeli special armed forces. At first I thought, "oh no poetry, ugh" but began reading it anyway because of who gave it to me and the message he wrote inside it.

Poetry is hard to read in masses. You can only read a few at a time to absorb them. Therefore, I've never finished the book. Today, a lazy July day where no library books grace my coffee table, I decided to pick it up and get through a few poems. This was really difficult to do, and worse after re-reading the inscription that I had forgotten was in there years ago. I don't want to write the message here due to privacy, but I'm going to transcribe two poems I just read that were wonderful.

And have no fear, poems will NEVER be on this blog again.

For My Birthday
Thirty-two times I went out into my life,
each time causing less pain to my mother,
less to other people,
more to myself.

Thirty-two times I have put on the world
and still it doesn't fit me.
It weighs me down,
unlike the coat that now takes the shape of my body
and is comfortable
and will gradually wear out.

Thirty-two times I went over the account,
without finding the mistake,
began the story
but wasn't allowed to finish it.

Thirty-two years I've been carrying along with me
my father's traits
and most of them I've dropped along the way,
so I could ease the burden.
And weeds grow in my mouth. And I wonder,
and the beam in my eyes, which I won't be able to remove,
has started to blossom with the trees in springtime.
And my good deeds grow smaller

and smaller. But
the interpretations around them have grown huge, as in
an obscure passage of the Talmud
where the text takes up less and less of the page
and Rashi and the other commentators
close in on it from every side.

And now, after thrity-two times,
I am still a parable
with no chance to becoming its meaning.
And I stand without camouflage before the enemy's eyes,
with outdated maps in my hand,
in the resistance that is gathering strength and between towers,
and alone, without recommendations
in the vast desert.

Poems for a Woman, #7
When you smile,
serious ideas get exhausted.

At night the mountains keep quiet beside you,
in the morning the sand goes with you down to the beach.

When you do nice things to me
all the heavy industries shut down.