YaLa Poetry | His Eyes by Or Avrahami, Israel

His eyes were dark black

portraying some kind of calmness

and turbulence

at the same time.

His eyes didn’t tell a thing

but if you looked

longer than a few seconds,

they said everything.

I looked at them curiously,

trying to understand

who is this young man

standing in front of me.

He looked at me back

embarrassed. Sometimes trying to look away.

And I see in my imagination

happy moments he had with his family

holidays and big dinners.

And then a fraction of sadness in his eyes,

and I think of wars.

I suddenly recall the young me,

afraid of taking a single bus drive.

I recall myself, and I think of him, his hometown.

The name of his village arouses mixed feelings

making me feel a slight pain in my stomach.

Who are his parents?

In what environment was he growing up?

Which experiences he had?

I imagine him as a young boy

standing on the side of a narrow street

and an armed convoy passes,

militant men proudly aiming their guns to the sky.

And then I was back to reality.

We met. He came for me, and I came for him.

We met trying to humanize the other

which life and reality made us fear.

His dark black eyes

were a mirror to his soul,

and I saw

that he was just like me.