Lamentable Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Lamentable


Behind my cottage there was an olive grove
someone came knocked down the trees for
a better view, but it wasn’t true they built
four thousand dwellings instead and called
it a security zone. And then they built a wall
so I can’t see my lost olive grove.

The world agree with me this is all wrong,
but tells me I, for the sake of peace, must
understand and give way. I have understood
for sixty years and given way so many times,
and I know now I made a mistake to let their
cattle graze on our common land