WE COULD HAVE LIVED SO WELL, YOU SAY, AND GAZE AT HER, STILL PRETTY

In a little while Shabbat in the Sharon, and traffic lights take off their red, and the laces unravel and yield the bare foot, and the records of the word gather into a book and rest from their anxiousness to break, and the change in the wallet emphasizes the victory of the many and the small, and the expiration dates on the milk do not threaten to be expired, and the first fruits are relaxing in sealed bags, and the ice in the freezer assumes the shape of the most self-confident mold, and the Styrofoam separates into small balls which do not need the practical, and the air conditioners do not apologize for faking the heat, and the screens do not apologize for faking brightness, and the poetry switches off the linoleum floor and switches on the ceiling,
 
and the adolescents are softer and are not putting off thank you, and what is piling up is piling up, and what is split is split, and the clouds ponder the field, and field ponders the fish that floats among the bushes in their imagination, and in the vineyards, grapes turn into raisins, others into wine, and not all the sweet ones are contaminated with maggots of worry, and he who asks for a deluge does not intend annihilation, but only a hard, streaming rain, and the community leaders return from the road, gathering a family to themselves, and generosity is being seen as a quiet virtue and not for display, and mistakes are removed from the heart of things, and the body’s exchanges are just, and the public domain is full of permissions, and the private domains are full,

and the fruits have set a tenth aside and do not miss the missing part, but are lighter, sweetness is intensified, every branch that crossbreeds accedes to him with whom it was crossbred, and the bulbs open themselves to the outside, and the bees imagine the honey, and the trees get themselves a new king, according to the vigor of the blooming, and the asphalt conquers the earth and liberates the best of her on the side of the road.

 
And Tamar and Amnon have moved into a pansy, where they are making cakes out of the colors, and the dust is withdrawing before the pollination, and every drizzle is the chance of a rainbow, and the green that is in the bushes almost overwhelms the leaves, and in the old people’s lawn which surrounds you the water sprinklers of winter open, and, indeed, there is suddenly a good southern wind,
 
only that she doesn’t answer when you ask, sparing you the nothingness, and her wrinkles multiply at once as if the little girl inside her were shrinking her into herself, and your words glide on the slope of her nose when you lean on your cane, looking at her, looking at the blossoming, looking at the asphalt (we could have lived so well, you say) remembering the earth.

יכולנו לחיות טוב כל כך אתה אומר, ומביט בה, יפה עדיין

יכולנו לחיות טוב כל כך אתה אומר, ומביט בה, יפה עדיין