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]