The Place Where We are Right

The Place Where We are Right 

From the place where we are rightFlowers will never growIn the spring. 

The place where we are rightIs hard and trampledLike a yard. 

But doubts and lovesDig up the worldLike a mole, a plow.And a whisper will be heard in the placeWhere the ruinedHouse once stood 

Yehuda Amichai

I heard the first two lines of this the other day and went and searched it out. I like it. I just picture a guy standing on a concrete patio watching his neighbors digging in their dirt, their back to him. He's looking smug and proud of himself, condescending at them, a woman and her daughter, dirt-stained, backs bent, sweating in the sun, doing something in the dirt.

What he can't see is that they are planting flowers, that in time he will be able to enjoy even as he enjoys his ugly gray concrete slab.

I'm sure the poem is a lot more than that but I just like the notion that we have to be willing to be wrong, to be willing to be open to new ideas.