These next two poems are from a cycle which is called,
Seven Laments for the Fallen in the War.
And, again, maybe some sad involvement,
but it has become part of our life over there.
Wars and nonwars causes change very quickly.
And each one of us who grew up there
has some kind of switch by which we can immediately
turn our whole system--
personal and economic and otherwise--
from war to peace and, thank heavens, also vice versa.
And in this country, if some father
wants to show his grown up children
his battle scenes of past wars, he has to go very far away.
And, in Israel, everything is very handy just
outside the window, so you don't have to travel far away.
And I have-- in one of my last poems in a new book,
which came out a few months ago, which has not yet been
translated except the few poems, which I might read later on, I
said something like that if a young soldier digs himself
in in one of the wars during a shelling or a bombardment
and makes himself a little hole in the Earth just to keep safe
from all the shells and bombs, he might well find himself--
if he survives-- two, or one week
even later in the same little hollow having a good time
with his girlfriend.
And the same thing can also be the other way around,
of course, that someone might be very happy
under some tree on some hill and some time later
he might find himself being under that same tree
and having a very bad time in war.
So, actually, everything is like some big package.
And, so, tension is always very high.
But the wish for survival is, I think,
one of the main things in our poetry.
That's why I've written so many love poems
and because it's the only way to survive it.
And I shall read you these two out of seven laments.
"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.
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 men, Earth and sand
are clear water in which forever he'll
cleanse his flesh and purify."