Have you heard of him? He is from Israel - Part II

What then is my life span? Like shooting a self-portrait
I set up the camera a few feet away on something stable
(the one thing that's stable in this world),
I decide on a good place to stand, near a tree
run back to the camera, press the timer,
run back again to that place near the tree
and I hear the ticking of time, the whirring
like a distant prayer, the click of the shudder like an execution.
That is my life span. God develops the picture
in His big darkroom. And here is the picture:
white hair on my head, eyes tired and heavy
eyebrows black, like the charred lintels
above the window in a house that burned down.
My life span is over.

-Yehuda Amichai