Ballad on the Streets of Buenos Aires

Painting by RachelArts

Ballad on the Streets of Buenos Aires

And a man waits in the street and meets a woman

precise and beautiful as the clock on the wall of her room

and sad and white as the wall that holds it

And she doesn’t show him her teeth

And she doesn’t show him her belly

but she shows him her time, precise and beautiful

And she lives on the ground floor next to the pipes

and the water that rises begins there in her wall

and he has decided on tenderness

And she knows the reasons for weeping

and she knows the reasons for holding back

and he begins to be like her, like her

And his hair will grow long and soft, like her hair

and the hard words of his language dissolve in her mouth

and his eyes will be filled with tears, like her eyes

And the traffic lights are reflected in her face

and she stands there amid the permitted and the forbidden

and he has decided on tenderness

And they walk in the streets that will soon appear in his dreams

and the rain weeps into them silently, as into a pillow,

and impatient time has made them both into prophets

And he will lose her at the red light

and he will lose her at the green and the yellow

and the light is always there to serve every loss

And he won’t be there when soap and lotion run out

and he won’t be there when the clock is set again

and he won’t be there when her dress unravels to threads in the wind

And she will lock his wild letters away in a quiet drawer

and lie down to sleep beside the water in the wall

and she will know the reasons for weeping and for holding back

and he has decided on tenderness

© Yehuda Amichai (vertaal deur Benjamin & Barbara Harshav)