Elisha Porat
ISRAEL

Elisha Porat

Hebrew poet and writer, has published 21 volumes of fiction and poetry, in Hebrew, since 1973. Elisha Porat was born in Kibbutz Ein Hahoresh in 1938. His latest Hebrew poems book, "My Reprive is Still Valid", was published in Israel, 2005, by Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishers. His works have appeared in translation in Israel, the United States, Canada and England. The English translation of his short stories collection "The Messiah of LaGuardia", Mosaic Press, was released in 1997. The English translation of his second stories collection "PAYBACK", was published 2002 at Wind River Press. His new novel "EPISODE", a biographical novel, just released by "Y&H" Publishers, Israel, 2006.

     His works, poetry and fiction, were translated from the Hebrew into the English, and were published, as print and as online, in a selected literary stages. Elisha Porat's works were published at Midstream, Tikkun, Ariel, War Literature and Arts, Rattle, Porcupine, Oyster Boy Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Boston Review, Poetrymagazine.com, Snake Nation Review, The Paumanok Review, The Pedestal Magazine, Jewish Quarterly, Deep SouthMPT Modern Poetry in Translation, The Jerusalem Post  and others.

 

Homecoming

They waited for him to come home:
the
trimmed lawn, the tree in its saucer,
the
faded plastic chairs, the rusty
gate
, creaking on its hinges.
Mother, brother, father, sister,

frozen
in time: wilting, transparent,
bowed
down with weight of days.
And then, when  suddenly he comes in,

everything
begins to move, the lawn thickens,
the
tree bears fruit, the plastic
chairs
are scrubbed, the gate turns
and
creaks, moving endlessly.
If only he would come in, come home.
The bubble of time bursts. The scarred heart

beats
again. Slowly they go down
on
their knees, lift their eyes
to
him in grief, in gratitude. 

translated by Eddie Levenston, April 2007 

 

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