Cyclamens and Swords

(Title poem of book by the same name published by Ibbetson Street Press, 2007)

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Life should be sunflowers and poetry
symphonies and four o’clock tea
instead it’s entangled
like necklaces in a drawer
when you reach in for cyclamens
you pull out swords

This is a country
which devours its inhabitants,
spits them out hollow like the shells of seeds,
defies them to survive
despite the peacelessness,
promises them cyclamens
but rewards them with swords

It is here we live with
symphonies and sunflowers,
poetry and four o’clock tea,
enmeshed in an absurd passion for this land
entangled as we are in its history,
like butterflies in a net
or sheep in a barbed wire fence

Where it is forbidden
to pick cyclamens
but necessary
to brandish swords

© 12.2006 Helen Bar-Lev