A Small Poetry Workshop
Three translations each of two different poems
By Elisha Porat

STRANGE SNOW

Strange soft snow descends
on the slopes of Jebel-El-Kabir
chill and silent it falls
on dugouts and vehicles
armored on the screens of memory.
Astray in me in the damp haze
forgotten comrades call
whose lives once touched my life
now grown distant beyond the roads
the roadblocks the rolling hardware.
Once, among them, I saw
such a pure white suddenly crushed;
minced and ploughed under and rearing up and then
subsiding silently absorbing
rent veins and a reddening stain.

Translated from the Hebrew by Riva Rubin.

FOREIGN SNOW

A soft foreign snow falls
on the slopes of Jebel=el=Kabir
chill and secret it falls
on dugouts on armored
vehicles on the screens of memory.
In the damp mist wander within me calling
forgotten comrades
whose lives once touched mine
distant now beyond roads
barriers and transported gear.
Once, among them, I saw a pure
whiteness like this suddenly trampled:
crushed ploughed and rising again
then dropping and without a sound blotting
rent arteries and a reddening stain.

translated from the Hebrew by Suzane Rosenfeld.

FOREIGN SNOW

Foreign downy snow falls
on the slopes of Jebel=el=Kabir,
cool and hushed it descends
on trenches on armored vehicles
across the screens of memory.
In the misty fog forgotten friends
get lost in me, calling.
friends whose lives touched mine,
now far beyond the highways
the roadblocks, the rolling machinery.
Once, among them, I happened to see
such pure whiteness suddenly crushed:
pulverized, ploughed, and rising,
then dropping and soundlessly absorbing
ripped veins and a reddening stain.

Translated from the Hebrew by Tsipi Keler

The Lost Son

So he came back, back like a stranger
And when he came back he looked around him and could not
Remember, for all to him was unfamiliar now:
The house, the yard, the narrow path.
Their memory cut off within his heart,
Cut out and he, survived, reprieved, was now the one
Who came; he who, still there, had sworn
Though he be made a stranger, he would not forget:
A footpath in the sand, the unploughed field, the trench
That marked the boundry, the lemon tree, its bitter fruit.
He felt his absence as if preordained:
Eventually to return, come back a stranger,
A darkness memory that would not depart,
A skein unravelling, unravelled, of longings, warm
Now, which would never be respun.

translated from the Hebrew by Marzell Kay, 1999.

The lost Son

And he returned, like a stranger he returned.
And as a stranger he looked round him and could not
remember, for everything was strange to him around him:
the house, the yard, the narrow path.
And their memory delved through his heart,
it cut, and he who survived, and was pardoned,
and returned; and he, who swore still there
he wouldn't forget a thing, even if he was estranged
from the hell of dust, and the wild field and the border
ditch, and the lemon tree, its sour fruit.
He felt his absence was a sort of sentence:
to return in the end, to return like a stranger,
with a dark memory that wouldn't leave him
and a frayed thread of warm nostalgia
that would never again be restored.

translated from the Hebrew by Lilian Naisberg Klain, 1999.

The lost Son

He came back, but he came like a stranger
He came back, looked about and did not
Recall, for to him, all appeared estranged:
The house, the yard, the narrow lane.
Their memory sliced through his heart,
Cut, and he who survived and was favoured
Came back; and he who had sworn back there
That nothing would he forget, estranged though it be:
A dirt path, and the barren field and the ditch
At the edge, and the Lemon tree with its bitter fruit.
He felt that his absence was almost ordained:
To come back at last, to come like a stranger
With a shadowy memory that was not estranged,
And an unravelled thread of burning desire
That will never more be made whole.

Translated by Asher Harris 1998.

Elisha Porat is a kibbutznik writer who has won many prizes for his work in poetry and prose.