Nineteen years this city was divided –
The lifetime of a young man who
might have fallen in the War.
I long for the serenity and for the old longing
Crazy people would cross through the fence that divided it,
Enemies breached it,
Lovers went up to it, testing,
Like circus acrobats who try the net
Before they dare to jump.

The patches of no-man’s land were like placid bays
Longing floated overhead in the sky
like ships whose anchors stuck deep in us, and sweetly
Ached.

Yehuda Amichai