ISRAEL

porat_el@einhahoresh.org.il

PAINFUL BIRDS

The helicopters, skillful, painful birds,

Again bombard targets above my head:

I sit, shaking at my writing desk,

I bend down to my notebook, clench

My shuddering pen. As if they know...

As if they sense an inner tracer, a red laser

Signal: they make another bomb run,

This time circling above my aging heart,

Who hastens to remove its rooms and

And empty spaces as though they had become

Black tanks, easy targets, sluggish vehicles

Flooded by grief and suffering.


translated from the Hebrew by Ward Kelley and the author.

© All Rights Reserved.

Yolki Flowers at Tel Hazika

That autumn, when their time came,

The Yolki flowers bloomed on Tel Hazika.

On the rocks, among shredded helmets,

Dark yellow patches suddenly blossomed,

Blinding yellows, as if they warned:

You can never forget us,

We will never give you rest;

You will always, every autumn, wonder

From where came this yellow yolki color? From where

Came this egg-yolk color? And where is the swallowed

Rock, that turned to red, submerged,

Soured from forgotten blood?


translated from the Hebrew by the author and Ward Kelley


editor's notes:

Tel Hazika is the name of a basalt hill on the
Golan Heights, where Porat's battalion had a
bloody battle against the Syrian army in 1973.

Yolki is the Hebrew name of a yellow flower
that blooms every autumn, in the northern Israel,
after the first rain.

© All Rights Reserved.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/
0889626146/qid%3D991713493/102-2541289-2858563
http://www.artvilla.com/porat/epbkrevw.htm
Growing Old, a new poems ebook, at http://www.blquanbeck.com/zebookcompany/elishaporat.html
http://www.SynergEbooks.com/scarofpride.htm
http://bakbook.co.il/bookstore/bookstore.asp?category=&id=119058
http://bakbook.co.il/bookstore/ebookstore.asp?category=&id=119259

© All Copyright, Elisha Porat.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.