Ik ging op vakantie en liet achter: het Midden Oosten.

WE MAKE LOVE IN A MILITARY CEMETERY


Late on Memorial Day we met at the graveyard’s wrought-iron door;
I’m one hundred percent disabled, she – a young widow-of-war
(Of the last war, very likely, twenty three/four, couldn’t be more).

Had we met at roulette, exchanging a glance –
The rest of my nights I’d have staked all on a chance,
Had we met, moonlight led, at an occult séance –
I’d have spent all my days in deep joyous trance.
Had we met on the floor of a jazz ballet class –
I’d have whirled away my life in everlasting dance.

But it was in a graveyard we came face to face
Thus my heart goes forever wandering off to that place –
Dark silence. No breath. Our backs rest in peaceful green hair.
And from fertile earth rises warm misty air

...“Am I not an almost perfect Israeli lover?”
I enquire, eyes twinkling, in self-assured undertone –
“You’re one-hundred-percent!” she laughs, reassuring,
“Just don’t go tell it to them tombstones!”



RAMY DITZANNY
Translated by the poet

http://israel.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=7257