Notes of a Kibbutznik

It’s been many years, it hardly rained

through thorns and thistles I still plow.

These barren sands I grip in my fists

to make way, in this desert, for a stream to flow.

Cobra and the scorpion search for my heel

and death is splattered all over these fields.

At times, it’s hurled across the fence

as a ghost of midnight’s timid wields.

I retreat not, for this mud’s soaked in my blood

whose malarial swamps my folks once tread.

From the heart of this marsh lilies bloomed again

this is the forgotten home - at last remembered.

Out of empty spaces this moment has risen

upon the ancestral ashes this seed was sown.

Herds of lives had emanated in smoke

their silenced violins and whispers woke up my brawn

new rail roads were laid to send them to death

closed were all roads that bring us to breath.

No light has ever really shone

through my darkest hour I’ll go it all alone

from the valley of death I shall arrive

I shall always win, for I shall survive

I’ve seen broken glass scattered all over

waking to a morning drenched in war

walking lives taken to an abrupt grave

after pieces of flesh were flung afar.

I heard songs of mirth halfway throttled

shrinking ecstatic dances to abysmal sorrow

culmination of feasts in breathless mourning

by mouthfuls of vengeance’s venomous vow.

I bid farewell to them that never returned

walked this graveyard till my soul’s all tired

I’ve seen fathers’ shoulders carrying the sons

and newly wed adolescence burying the bride.

I leapt over the shreds of dead

while flames swept by my side

crept across the rumbling rubble

scampering towards nowhere, to hide.

I’ve seen fire raging in the bright blue sky

and majestic heights tumbling to the ground

voices vanish again in thin columns of smoke

reopening the scars of an age old wound.

But on I go -

reaping the harvest of citrus and dates

till my very last, I’ll be here guarding these gates.

Through the thawing time, had no faithful friends

no good neighbor’s willful helping hands

yes, I open up my chest to the swirling winds of scorn

and hold high the beacon for the future to be born.