This poetic collection is an honest and deeply reflective look at life overshadowed by disputed settlements and political upheaval in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yonatan Berg is a poet from Israel and the youngest person ever awarded the Yehuda Amichai Poetry Prize. This collection brings together the best poems from his three published collections in Hebrew, deftly translated by Joanna Chen. His poetry recounts his upbringing on an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, and service in a combat unit of the Israeli military, which left him with post-traumatic stress disorder. He grapples with questions of religion and tradition, nationalism, war, and familial relationships. The book also explores his conceptual relationship with Biblical, historical, and literary characters from the history of civilization, set against a backdrop of the Mediterranean landscape. Berg shares an insider's perspective on life in Israel today.

PART ONE: HANDS THAT ONCE HELD MANNA . Letter to the Reader . Unity . Particular Timing . The End of Naiveté . Map . Settlement . Ramallah Through the Window of a Bus . Returning . Friday Market . Distance . PART TWO: DUST RISNG FROM THE BLOW . Through the Eyes of Ramallah . The Mothers . After a Night in the Alley of Worshippers . Occupation of the Land . The Fighter Speaks . Jenin . Remembrance . Positive Identification . Hebron . Post-Trauma . After the War . PART THREE: AN ISSAC MOMENT . Improvisation . Odessa . A Late Landscape . Visitation . Father . Psalms . To My Mother . PART FOUR:WATER PIERCES ITSELF . Adam and Eve . Cain . Abel . Noah . Abraham . Sarah Expels Hagar . Inverted Sacrifice (Isaac) . Rivka . Rachel . Yocheved . Job . The Prophet Devorah . Judah the Maccabee . Jesus . Babel: The Immigrant Speaks . The Khazar Kingdom . Martin Buber . Rosa Luxemburg . Golda Meir . Hannah Arendt, Jerusalem 1961 . My Father, Meir Berg . My Mother, Shoshana Oppenheimer-Berg . PART FIVE: HUNGRY AND SURGING . A First Encounter with Death . Samaria . Parting the Sea . Report from a Free City . Interlude . Red . Dana . Interim Report . Love . Walking . Epilogue