WEBVTT

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These next two poems are
from a cycle which is called,

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Seven Laments for the
Fallen in the War.

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And, again, maybe
some sad involvement,

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but it has become part
of our life over there.

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Wars and nonwars causes
change very quickly.

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And each one of us
who grew up there

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has some kind of switch by
which we can immediately

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turn our whole system--

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personal and economic
and otherwise--

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from war to peace and, thank
heavens, also vice versa.

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And in this country,
if some father

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wants to show his
grown up children

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his battle scenes of past wars,
he has to go very far away.

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And, in Israel, everything
is very handy just

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outside the window, so you
don't have to travel far away.

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And I have-- in one of my
last poems in a new book,

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which came out a few months
ago, which has not yet been

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translated except the few poems,
which I might read later on, I

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said something like that if
a young soldier digs himself

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in in one of the wars during
a shelling or a bombardment

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and makes himself a little hole
in the Earth just to keep safe

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from all the shells and bombs,
he might well find himself--

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if he survives--
two, or one week

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even later in the same little
hollow having a good time

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with his girlfriend.

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And the same thing can also
be the other way around,

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of course, that someone
might be very happy

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under some tree on some
hill and some time later

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he might find himself
being under that same tree

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and having a very
bad time in war.

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So, actually, everything
is like some big package.

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And, so, tension is
always very high.

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But the wish for
survival is, I think,

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one of the main
things in our poetry.

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That's why I've written
so many love poems

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and because it's the
only way to survive it.

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And I shall read you these
two out of seven laments.

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"Mr. Beringer, whose son
fell by the canal which

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was dug by strangers for ships
to pass through the desert,

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is passing me at the Jaffa gate.

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He has become very thin,
has lost his son's weight.

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Therefore, he is
floating lightly

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through the alleys getting
entangled in my heart

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like driftwood.

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As a child, he mashed
potatoes into golden puree.

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After that, one dies.

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The living child
has to be cleaned

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after it returns from play.

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But for the dead
men, Earth and sand

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are clear water in
which forever he'll

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cleanse his flesh and purify."

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