Feels like home to me

Love poem to my hometown.


Ten measures of beauty gave God to the world: nine to Jerusalem and one to the remainder. Ten measures of sorrow gave God to the world: nine to Jerusalem and one to the remainder.
 The Talmud, Kiddushin 49:2

 I walk the narrow streets of the old neighborhoods with you,
where the broken cobblestones are etched like ancient maps.
 Skinny cedars sway in the wind, throwing dancing shadows, on the tilted stone fences.
Shreds of clouds rushing by, let loose heavy drops of rain, grayness
 like an infectious disease, I know it.
 I inhale till it hurts, sharp as a piece of broken glass,
 holy Jerusalem air, filled with sadness, so deep so all encompassing.
 My tormented city, her sorrows come from her insides,
seep through the layers of the past, lying below the surface.
I can see the houses, low to the ground, bent with the years,
dry blades of grass growing on roofs, as they do in the small yards.
 Behind crooked, rusty gates, small windows with iron grates veil
 the real life, always hidden from the street.
And I love these Jerusalem insights,
as much as I love you, my hometown friend.
My guide to the beauty of words, those bring back the sights,
 the smells, the sense of my lost childhood town,
 that no one can sketch so brilliantly, as the one who grew up there.

• The poem is a tribute to Amos Oz, who grew up in Jerusalem and his books about the city feel like home to me.