You advise me that we are going
Wandering.
I organise a demonstration in protest
But go as you command.
Suddenly a fence, suddenly a partition,
I learn to address you all over again:
You’re you.
There’s time and space to return again
But I’m washed up without you,
Trying to fright the shadows from my head
Looking to see logic
I awake.
Choosing to wander again
I choose wandering
Discover my power’s by consent.
We’re both exiles and I await – till you permit
Return, till you rise from the spring.
*
I advise you that we were going
Into exile by holding our breath.
I arrange myself, wait
And tell you: I have one land, for you – a strange land.
Access by foot is partial, security depressed,
And the plateau is punitive.
I’m forced to beg for love. Hide,
Hide clinging to the walls,
Haemorrhaging the longing, mourning long,
I sit in my straits
Bare my eyes and gaze, terrible things before me just now.
I look for a trace of what was once routine,
Find it: suddenly a surplus bowl
Right in the middle of the table. A fence stands
But I am not entirely
There.
We both shout new words of calm,
A new thought becomes apparent
The exile of us two: yours is one, mine another.
We know where the loss was and roam,
Walk passionately, fondling the air
And were like lunatics all of those days,
And were like ones asleep.
Published in Mashiv HaRuach 29. vl. and in Makor Rishon , September 2009.
Translated by: Atar Hadari
Read Hebrew version: ערגה