1.

Mr. Beringer, whose son

fell by the Canal, which

was dug by strangers

for ships to pass through the desert,

is passing me at the Jaffa gate;

He has become very thin; has lost

his son’s weight.

Therefore he is floating lightly

through the alleys

getting entangled in my heart

like driftwood.

2.

As a child he mashed potatoes

into golden puree.

After that one dies.

The living child has to be

cleaned after it returns from play.

But for the dead man

earth and sand are clear water

in which forever

he’ll cleanse his flesh and purify.

3.

The monument of the unknown soldier,

beyond, on the enemy’s side.

A good target marker for the gunners

of future wars.

Or the war monument in London,

Hyde Park Comer, decorated

like a rich, splendid cake: one more

soldier raising head and rifle,

one more gun, another eagle, another

angel made of stone.

Whipped cream of a big marble flag

is poured over it all

with expert hand.

But the sugarcoated too-red

cherries

were eaten up already

by the gourmet of hearts. Amen.

4.

1 found an old Text Book of animals,

Brehm, second volume, birds:

Description, in sweet language, of the lives

of crows, swallows and jays. A lot of mistakes

in gothic printing, but a lot of love: "Our

feathered friends," "emigrate to warmer

countries." "Nest, dotted egg, soft plumage,

the nightingale, "prophets of spring"

The Red-Breasted Robin.

Year of printing 1913, Germany

on the eve of the war which became

the eve of all my wars.

My good friend, who died in my arms and in his blood

in the sands of Ashdod*, 1948, in June.

Oh, my friend,

red breasted.

5.

Dicky was hit,

like the water tower at Yad Mordecai **

was hit. A hole in his belly. Everything

poured out of him.

But he has remained thus, standing

in the landscape of my memory,

like the water tower at Yad Mordecai.

Not far from there he fell,

a little to the north, near Houleikat.***

6.

Is all of this sorrow? I don’t know.

I was standing in the cemetery, wearing

camouflage clothes of the living:

brown trousers and a shirt yellow as the sun.

Cemeteries are cheap and very undemanding.

Even waste-baskets are small, just

to hold thin wrapping paper of bought flowers,

Cemeteries are a well behaved and disciplined thing.

"and I shall never forget you" thus written

on a little ceramic plate, in French.

I don’t know who is it, that shall never forget

he is even more unknown than the dead.

Is all of this sorrow? I think

so: "May you be comforted by the building of the land."

How much more can one build the land

to catch up in this terrible three cornered contest

between comfort and building and death?

Yes, all this is sorrow. But leave

a little love burning, always

like in a sleeping baby’s room, a little bulb,

without it knowing what the light is

and where it comes from. Yet it gives

a little feeling of security and silent love.

7.

Memorial day for the War-dead. Add now

the grief of all your losses to their grief,

even of a woman that has left you. Mix

sorrow with sorrow, like time-saving history

which stacks holiday and sacrifice and mourning

on one day for easy convenient memory.

Oh, sweet world soaked, like bread

in sweet milk for the terrible toothless God.

"Behind all this some great happiness is hiding"

No use to weep inside and to scream outside.

Behind all this perhaps some great happiness is hiding.

Memorial day. Bitter salt is dressed up

as a little girl with flowers.

The streets are cordoned off with ropes,

for the marching together of the living and the dead.

Children with a grief not their own march slowly,

like stepping over broken glass.

The flautist’s mouth will stay like that for many days,

A dead soldier swims above little heads

with the swimming movements of the dead

with the ancient error the dead have

about the place of the living water.

A flag loses contact with reality and flies off

A shop window is decorated with

dresses of beautiful women, in blue and white,

And everything in three languages:

Hebrew, Arabic and Death.

A great and royal animal is dying

all through the night under the jasmin

tree with a constant stare at the world.

A man whose son died in the war walks in the street

like a woman with a dead embryo in her womb,

"Behind all this some great happiness is hiding."

*Asdod — A major battle in the Israeli war of Independence

**Yad Mordecai — a kibbutz in the south