Half the people in the world love the other half, 
half the people hate the other half. 
Must I because of this half and that half go wandering 
and changing ceaselessly like rain in its cycle, 
must I sleep among rocks, and grow rugged like 
the trunks of olive trees, 
and hear the moon barking at me, 
and camouflage my love with worries, 
and sprout like frightened grass between the railroad 
tracks, 
and live underground like a mole, 
and remain with roots and not with branches, and not 
feel my cheek against the cheek of angels, and 
love in the first cave, and marry my wife 
beneath a canopy of beams that support the earth, 
and act out my death, always till the last breath and 
the last words and without ever understanding, 
and put flagpoles on top of my house and a bomb shelter 
underneath. And go out on raids made only for 
returning and go through all the appalling 
stations?cat,stick,fire,water,butcher, 
between the kid and the angel of death? 
Half the people love, 
half the people hate. 
And where is my place between such well-matched halves, 
and through what crack will I see the white housing 
projects of my dreams and the bare foot runners 
on the sands or, at least, the waving of a girl's 
kerchief, beside the mound? 


Translated by Chana Bloch And Stephen Mitchell