PoetryMagazine.com

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.

 

 

 

 And Again the Juniper Whitens
To the memory of Natan Yonatan

The shore is always a landscape of longing
for the seasonable Hadera creek of days gone by.
And in the grove of eucalyptus, the shady giants,
among the warm winter dunes, the cormorants
find overnight refuge in the parking lot of a nature reserve.
The flowering juniper whitens and honeys
the air with the bitter sweetness of memories:
As if yet again a young heart is pierced there,
as if yet again those barrages are fired.
And in the heart of whiteness patches of poppies splatter
reddening:  on the coastal road, on that
distant Saturday afternoon.  But the eyes
of the poet have seen it all, and written it too.
Like a printed memory, like photographs
transferred to paper, and engraved on the heart.

translated from the Hebrew by Cindy Eisner

 

 

 

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