A Longing
On Memorial Day I surrender
to a longing for my dead.
The wail of the siren shrieking
above the Eucalyptus tops
is sounded from afar as if
it were a private whistle-code
between me and them. As if
presently they'll rise
shake off the dust,
lean their bikes against the fence
and whistle back to me.
As if time gathers again
into the funnel of the electric siren:
it goes down through iron and grounds
the awful wailing
deep in the earth.
©1999 Elisha Porat
Translated from Hebrew by Tsipi Keler
Exile
In the quiet nursing home in Jerusalem
in the old neighborhood of "Beit Yosef"
my good readers wait for me:
old men weaned of joy
shuffle their feet on tiled floors,
and the women, parched and withered,
resemble the rusty pails
once used to draw water from wells.
Once a week they come out
to the terrace to observe my weakness,
as I totter on the pavement below:
"Come join us,"
they call with compassion,
"We`ve been long exiled from our lives,
but you, where are you rushing to?"
©1999 Elisha Porat
Translated from Hebrew by Tsipi Keler
Ferris Wheel
In the Casino, under Hatzbaya,
spring water rumble,
imprisoned in coves of concrete,
bolting racing spinning to press out
powerfully driving a rusty Ferris wheel,
a remnant of forgotten fairs.
On the torn lattice seat
I notice a Druze kid
flying, letting out a shout:
an unforgettable landscape
is suddenly revealed to him.
In the dense grasses all around
the blackened corpses of tanks,
an ashen mound, helmets, abandoned gear
roll about, swept south down the river
toward a blinding horizon
toward places that even from the top of the wheel
one can only guess at the distance.
©1999 Elisha Porat
Translated from Hebrew by Tsipi Keler
Memorial Day
On Memorial Day I take-off to the woods.
Again I'm moved.
Through the smoke I observe
the earth veiling its shoulders.
As they gather before me from the rocks
I command: You're all released to memories.
I turn aside and to you I whisper:
This is it, folks, they're trapped.
They can't escape. Their will and testament
they've left with us.
©1999 Elisha Porat
Translated from Hebrew by Tsipi Keler
Memory Of My Youth
For Sima and Ephy Eyal
Poetry is a sudden process
of verbal compression.
I remember well one such illumination:
her father was a famous artist
who used to load his brush
with one bullet many --
to explode on the canvas with first touch.
He drew the beautiful head of his daughter
and shook his head with pity at my sweaty pages:
I feel for the two of you,
she dosen`t know yet
that a poet is a continuous process
of the pain of existence.
©1999 Elisha Porat
Translated from Hebrew by Tsipi Keler
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