Mr.
Beringer, whose sonfell at the Canal that strangers dugso ships could cross the desert,crosses my path at Jaffa Gate.
He has grown very thin, has lostthe weight of his son.
That's why he floats so lightly in the alleysand gets caught in my heart like little twigsthat drift
As a child he would mash his potatoesto a golden mush.
And then you die.
A living child must be cleanedwhen he comes home from playing.
But for a dead manearth and sand are clear water, in whichhis body goes on being bathed and
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldieracross there.
On the enemy's side.
A good landmarkfor gunners of the future.
Or the war monument in Londonat Hyde Park Corner, decoratedlike a magnificent cake: yet another soldierlifting head and rifle,another cannon, another eagle, anotherstone angel.
And the whipped cream of a huge marble flagpoured over it allwith an expert hand.
But the candied, much-too-red cherrieswere already gobbled upby the glutton of hearts.
Amen.4I came upon an old zoology textbook,
Brehm,
Volume II,
Birds:in sweet phrases, an account of the life of the starling,swallow, and thrush.
Full of mistakes in
Gothic typeface, but full of love, too. "Our featheredfriends." "Migrate from us to warmer climes."Nest, speckled egg, soft plumage, nightingale,stork. "The harbirngers of spring." The robin,red-breasted.
Year of publication: 1913,
Germany,on the eve of the war that was to bethe eve of all my wars.
My good friend who died in my arms, inhis blood,on the sands of Ashdod. 1948,
June.
Oh
Dicky was hit.
Like the water tower at Yad Mordekhai.
Hit.
A hole in the belly.
Everythingcame flooding out.
But he has remained standing like thatin the landscape of my memorylike the water tower at Yad Mordekhai.
He fell not far from there,a little to the north, near
Is all of thissorrow?
I don't know.
I stood in the cemetery dressed inthe camouflage clothes of a living man: brown pantsand a shirt yellow as the sun.
Cemeteries are cheap; they don't ask for much.
Even the wastebaskets are small, made for holdingtissue paperthat wrapped flowers from the store.
Cemeteries are a polite and disciplined thing."I Shall never forget you," in Frenchon a little ceramic plaque.
I don't know who it is that won't ever forget:he's more anonymous than the one who died.
Is all of this sorrow?
I guess so."May ye find consolation in the buildingof the homeland." But how longcan you go on building the homelandand not fall behind in the terriblethree-sided racebetween consolation and building and death?
Yes, all of this is sorrow.
But leavea little love burining alwayslike the small bulb in the room of a sleeping babythat gives him a bit of security and quiet lovethough he doesn't know what the light isor where it comes
Memorial Day for the war-dead: go tack onthe grief of all your losses--including a woman who left you--to the grief of losing them; go mixone sorrow with another, like history,that in its economical wayheaps pain and feast and sacrificeonto a single day for easy reference.
Oh sweet world, soaked like breadin sweet milk for the terribletoothless God. "Behind all this,some great happiness is hiding." No usecrying inside and screaming outside.
Behind all this, some great happiness maybe hiding.
Memorial day.
Bitter salt, dressed up asa little girl with flowers.
Ropes are strung out the whole length of the routefor a joing parade: the living and the dead together.
Children move with the footsteps of someone else's griefas if picking their way through broken glass.
The flautist's mouth will stay pursed for many days.
A dead soldier swims among the small headswith the swimming motions of the dead,with the ancient error the dead haveabout the place of the living water.
A flag loses contact with reality and flies awayA store window decked out with beautiful dresses for womenin blue and white.
And everythingin three languages:
Hebrew,
Arabic and Death.
A great royal beast has been dying all night longunder the jasmine,with a fixed stare at the world.
A man whose son died in the warwalks up the streetlike a woman with a dead fetus inside her womb."Behind all this, some great happiness is hiding."
