A Border Kibbutz at Night

by Marc Mangel

 

You’ve just been seen

as lights

blinking flickering at night

so far that day makes invisibility

yet you are there

on a border?

 

Protecting or just beaming

beaconing

beckoning

us

perhaps you have a girl

with soft black eyes

and round brown breasts

whom i could love

 

or is it just the land

which truly was ours before

we were hers

a black soil and streaming

wind forcing still clear water

a land which i could

really love

perhaps

 

i see you have a neighbor

but he also just vibrates light

maybe far away

do you long for company

search for joy

or for sorrow

 

you lights so far away

is isolation so

painful

 

you lights so far away

is purpose

so rewarding

 

tell us

we long to know

 

September 1973 [I was at a meeting on warm lakes, held at the Kinneret, when I wrote this.  Less than a month later the Yom Kippur War started]