BETWEEN MY HOUSE AND YOURS

 
 
We’ve never walked yet through your past.
Separating my house from yours are your parents’
perplexities, your own caution, and the Green Line. Thus,
you seem to me always a hero coming down
from Intifada country.
 
In addition to your room, I’d most like to see
the flat rock near the entrance to Ariel,
where you used to go to be alone, making yourself a world
removed from the world. With no politics in it.
 
I never acknowledged the untamed land you grew up in.
That boulder-strewn countryside, magic to you, to me
has always been merely Occupied Territory. Suddenly,
in loving you, I find myself
nostalgic for the landscapes of your childhood.
 
It’s hard to believe it could ever happen. But
beyond all the killing and the blood we two here together,
are willing to apply our love to the landscapes of the past.
Perhaps, in fact, there’s no fairer thing we can do.

בין ביתי לביתך

בין ביתי לביתך