We did it - Yehuda Amichai

We did it before the mirror
And in the light. We did it in darkness,
In the water, and in the high grass.

We did it in honour of man
And in honour of beast and in honour of God.
But they didn’t want to know about us,
They had already seen that sort of thing.

We did it with imagination and colours,
With confusion of reddish hair and brown
And with difficult gladdening
Exercises. We did it

Like wheels and holy creatures
And with chariot-feats of prophets.
We did it with six wings
And six legs

                       But the heavens
Were hard above us
Like the earth of the summer beneath.

---

Yehuda Amichai (1924 - 2000) Israel
Translated by Harold Schimmel
Source: The Penguin Book of Love Poetry, edited by Jon Stallworthy, Penguin, 1976