Sderot

Sderot, A child's painting 

It took me twenty years to love 

this hole in the middle of nowhere. 

The cotton buds dispersed in a white flame 

and the wind meddled in the cypresses, 

until I saw for the first time, 

with an accurate eye, 

the unsophisticated buildings beneath the roof of clouds, 

until I heard 

the wonderful rumbling of the street. 

The last whisper expelled from waves of asphalt 

blended with the rustle of evening’s thud on the ground, 

like the voice of a forgotten woman that betrayed her 

and told the truth which she tried 

to conceal in her face. 

Years of erosion 

have taught the children to fondle the water in the stone, 

to splash in the puddles paper boats with farcical hope. 

The circus-like past of the girls blossomed with the hiking of a skirt 

when the crowed sawed him in two with its gaze. 

Only places bereft of love are entitled to absolute love. 

Shimon Adaf