The School Where I Studied

I passed by the school where I studied as a boyand said in my heart: here I learned certain thingsand didn't learn others.

All my life I have loved in vainthe things I didn't learn.

I am filled with knowledge,

I know all about the flowering of the tree of knowledge,the shape of its leaves, the function of its root system, its pests and parasites.

I'm an expert on the botany of good and evil,

I'm still studying it,

I'll go on studying till the day I die.

I stood near the school building and looked in.

This is the roomwhere we sat and learned.

The windows of a classroom always opento the future, but in our innocence we thought it was only landscapewe were seeing from the window.

The schoolyard was narrow, paved with large stones.

I remember the brief tumult of the two of usnear the rickety steps, the tumultthat was the beginning of a first great love.

Now it outlives us, as if in a museum,like everything else in Jerusalem.