ჟურნალი

When the siege tightens its hoop, as an octopus its tentacles, I know there is always Masada in reserve.

On the palm of the motionless sea I lie, like a dead man, on the Dead one.

I weep at the wall of lamentation and sorrow, I rejoice and grieve with a prayer on my lips.

There is a time to live — mine is on the wane, but I do not sprinkle ashes on my head…

Let me go, desert, let me go, for forty years the skin on my soles has been hardening.

I drink water from David’s stream greedily, my parched mouth pressed to it.

Foreign native speech: I will cough up the dust of my lungs.

Savlanut. Bear it. I bear it… I have no strength to grow used to my fate.