From the archives — There Are Those Who — Elisha Porat

There Are Those Who

There are those who count on their fingers
as if they were counting their dead,
and there are those whose friends constantly explode
with the whistle of the wind in their ears.
As if they kept coming and coming
from those fields, from the black
basalt stones.
And there are those who look up
now, to the cleansing sky,
and see thousands of mourners
whose tortured hearts
are also their own.
And there are those who sit
quietly on the drive,
touch their grimy necks
and are silent.

by Elisha Porat

Translated from the Hebrew by Cindy Eisner

from Autumn Sky Poetry Number 1, March 2006

Photo by Christine Klocek-Lim