Photos: Ilan Hirschowitz/Luba Zuk  

Negev’s Flowers

As a teeny, tiny fragment

The city sleep in the Universe, and

In that moment, when the night resettle itself in its full blackness

My eyes gaze far a sad star falling through mighty darkness, and

Right there! At the intersection of light and dark, I live.

I hush my guitar, my tool of expression

A tear falls from my eyes alert to divine beauty, and

Singly, sliding down through my torrid face, and

It is not that I am ill or something!

It's this uneasy lasting longing stretching my chest,

Longing amending blood pressure, and

Shudders profoundly the structure of immense melancholy, thus

Constant restless, I am.

I play gongs in pagodas and do “daimoko” searching for Buddha in my quietness

I play bells in cathedrals, and who knows, by taking a sip of their wine

I turn the chaste mighty God in a charming Negev's flower, and

Play the “shofar” as symbol of the land I miss desperately

Mother of the sacred and the source of my mystery.

I miss the genuine poetry preserved in abundance

In Semitic eyes which can be meaningless to who simply look at,

Look but don't want to see it, still

For me every brief look at Semitic eyes

Reveals the motive of my unmatched love for Israel;

My very private and eccentric longing.

E.S. Dido