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Elisha Porat
ISRAEL
Elisha Porat is an Isreali poet & writer, born in 1938 on his
parents' kibbutz, where he still resides. Winner of the 1968 Prime
Minister's Award, he writes solely in Hebrew; however his work is
translated into numerous other languages.
He has published 19 volumes of fiction & poetry since 1973, all in
his native Hebrew.
His short stories include The Messiah of LaGuardia
(1997 , Mosaic Press) & PAYBACK (2002, Wind River
Press). His novel
Episode was published in 2006 by Y&H. |
Wild Roadkill
translated from the Hebrew by Cindy Eisner
The list of wild animals killed
in this terrible spring, on
the road whose number is five eight
one, grows longer by
the day: Add, my friends tell me,
a dead marten. Add a flattened
badger. Add a fledgling kingfisher,
squashed. A small blue feather
quivering on the warm asphalt.
On my evening bike ride, in the darkness,
I glide by in silence,
whooshing towards them, pedaling past.
Exactly as I passed by then,
in that accursed summer: passed by
those lying in the long rows,
in the shade of the protected northern wall
of the smoking Jenin police station.
Spring 2007
Portrait of My
Mother
Translated from the Hebrew by Cindy Eisner
Fragments of memory, sparks, contain
my nights. And suddenly my mind is
laid open: the image of rounded
hips, the box of chocolate, the
Belgian sweets. The story of my
infancy, my nose running in the crib.
A portrait of her as a young woman, neglected
like an old memory, painful, exposed,
lying on the bed to mock me.
And the confusions of her decaying mind:
the French waltz, the loss of
her father, the deceit of my childhood
caretakers. I grasp
her photograph, retreat into
the past, imprison my tears:
hear the fractured words that escape
her mouth, observe the unnatural ruddiness
of her cheeks. Here is
my entire life, here is hers.
To My Mother
Translated from the Hebrew by Cindy Eisner
I was just a child when my father sent me
into the alfalfa field, running
barefoot on the cracked earth,
excited at the prospect of finding him
a special five-leafed specimen.
To this day I remember:
a crisp October in a translucent fall,
bees buzzing in
soft lumps of purple honey.
I moved past him – but
time defeated me; and so
standing on the low wall
in the shadow of the graveyard,
I call to him just as I did then:
Father; eternity; sweet alfalfa.
I was a child and my foot was bleeding, but
in my hand I held the botanical wonder: a five-leafed plant
and sorrow that knows no consolation.
A Short Biography
Translated
from the Hebrew by Asher Harris
"You're a
dead horse", the publisher
told
me, rejecting my poems,
"and
it would cost too much to resuscitate you."
"He's as dead as a door nail",
the man
from the Mobile ICU told my wife
when
she begged for another electric shock.
"No way can he be resuscitated".
But I, 'doubly dead', am still
alive
and pounding along
in the
saddle of my horses' memories.
Had
Gadya 2004
translated from the Hebrew by Robert Rosenberg
They
told me: get rid of them
with your 0.22
I did. They didn't move
with the 7.25
I did. They didn't move.
They came back: Wipe them out
with the ought five
I wiped. They didn't move.
So the order came again: Smash them
with the .81 mm
I smashed. They didn't move.
And they said. Chew them up
with the D-9.
I chewed. They didn't move.
And then they ordered: Bring
that beating thing
with the two chambers.
I brought it. Yes I did.
Geology Lesson
Translated from the Hebrew by Cindy Eisner
"The anomaly of
Jerusalem is not easy to comprehend.
On the face of it everything is clear: the plateau and the limestone,
a raised holy site."
He tapped his rock pick,
peeled the crimson-red silicate
from the stone that he had freed.
"The innocent red Jerusalem stone indicates that there,
in the bowels of the earth, everything is broken, exposed and crushed.
Like a gigantic upturned funnel –
a basin draining the blood of the Jews,
who are sucked into it from all over the world."
I remember his lesson as if it were yesterday:
the city floating, the suddenly rocking street,
the rust-colored crevice; and beneath me, deep and dim,
a seething, teeming ancient river.
Pollination
Translated from the Hebrew by Cindy Eisner
When I come to the custard apple tree with my brush,
a rickety ladder swaying under me,
a golden pollen flows straight from my hand
into her pistils. Her flowers
provoke me with stubborn infertility:
closing, opening, and mocking
my muscles, my tendons, and my breath.
And when I descend, missing
a step, hurting my hand on the roughness
of her bark, I kneel beneath her,
raise my eyes, and say:
Thank you. It is enough. I was
a tree for a moment. I am grateful,
I have taken part in the process of creation.
© All Copyright, Elisha Porat.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By
Permission.
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