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Poem

Aryeh Sivan

BETWEEN THE AVENUE AND THE SEA

I remember my kindergarten in Tel Aviv
on Jewish National Fund Avenue, in a housing project,
the first or second building from the left.
More than anything else I remember the ceremony of the first fruits –
onions and radishes from our garden given to the Fund.

West of my kindergarten,
between it and the sea,
was a Moslem cemetery. When I was young
I went there with girls
showered my first seed on their thighs,
on the edges of their stomachs.

How many descendants I could have placed, then,
between the tombstones, on the graves
of Arabs.

BETWEEN THE AVENUE AND THE SEA

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BETWEEN THE AVENUE AND THE SEA

I remember my kindergarten in Tel Aviv
on Jewish National Fund Avenue, in a housing project,
the first or second building from the left.
More than anything else I remember the ceremony of the first fruits –
onions and radishes from our garden given to the Fund.

West of my kindergarten,
between it and the sea,
was a Moslem cemetery. When I was young
I went there with girls
showered my first seed on their thighs,
on the edges of their stomachs.

How many descendants I could have placed, then,
between the tombstones, on the graves
of Arabs.

BETWEEN THE AVENUE AND THE SEA

I remember my kindergarten in Tel Aviv
on Jewish National Fund Avenue, in a housing project,
the first or second building from the left.
More than anything else I remember the ceremony of the first fruits –
onions and radishes from our garden given to the Fund.

West of my kindergarten,
between it and the sea,
was a Moslem cemetery. When I was young
I went there with girls
showered my first seed on their thighs,
on the edges of their stomachs.

How many descendants I could have placed, then,
between the tombstones, on the graves
of Arabs.
Sponsors
Gemeente Rotterdam
Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Prins Bernhard cultuurfonds
Lira fonds
Versopolis
J.E. Jurriaanse
Gefinancierd door de Europese Unie
Elise Mathilde Fonds
Stichting Verzameling van Wijngaarden-Boot
Veerhuis
VDM
Partners
LantarenVenster – Verhalenhuis Belvédère