"The precision of pain and the blurriness of joy. I'm thinking how people are when they describe their pain in a doctor's office.
Even those who haven't learned to read and write are precise: 'This one's a throbbing pain, that one's a wrenching pain, this one gnaws, that one burns, this is a sharp pain and that--a dull one. Right here. Precisely here, yes, yes.' Joy blurs everything. I've heard people say after nights of loved and feasting, 'It was great, it was seventh heaven.' Even the spaceman who floated in outer space, tethered to a spaceship, could say only, 'Great, wonderful, I have no words.'
The blurriness of joy and the precision of pain--
I want to describe, with a sharp pain's precision, happiness and blurry joy. I learned to speak among the pains."
Even those who haven't learned to read and write are precise: 'This one's a throbbing pain, that one's a wrenching pain, this one gnaws, that one burns, this is a sharp pain and that--a dull one. Right here. Precisely here, yes, yes.' Joy blurs everything. I've heard people say after nights of loved and feasting, 'It was great, it was seventh heaven.' Even the spaceman who floated in outer space, tethered to a spaceship, could say only, 'Great, wonderful, I have no words.'
The blurriness of joy and the precision of pain--
I want to describe, with a sharp pain's precision, happiness and blurry joy. I learned to speak among the pains."
Yehuda Amichai
