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Poetry || SubmissionsFour poems by Elisha PoratPainful 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. 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? 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. My reprieve is still valid In this winter I watch from the Far fields: the shouting rumble of Grey cranes in the fallow, and Blackbirds singing in the Pine thicket. It is the Sabbath day; I go to the marshes, and drink from The fragrance of my childhood . . . Forgotten daffodils. Children are Collecting mushrooms: oh, the Eely skullcap of a fresh Champignon; oh, the sand grains of Mushrooms in the sizzling pot! My head suddenly feels encircled By onion steam, and this familiar Aroma blocks me. Abruptly I stop. I surrender to my memories. And I Say to myself: right now, this morning, My reprieve is still valid. Ibid. "Ibid, ibid," and even more "ibid . . . " I was sent, in my youth, to The footnotes on the bottom of the page. But I couldn't see how these "ibids," Below the scrolls, below the papers, Helped waste my life there wandering Among them. Today I'll not wonder any More: I know there is not any "ibid" that Can divert me from the final hole Who waits for my life to finish. My last "ibid" is already there: Waiting for me, ready for me . . . To its end I'm sent. All poems translated from the Hebrew by the author and Ward Kelley More writing by Elisha Porat at Ariga: Elisha Porat -- Four poems Also see http://www.artvilla.com/porat/epbkrevw.htm Growing Old, a new poems ebook, at Growing Old, an E-book and Payback, a new science fiction ebook, Payback Today's Situation
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