WITHOUT A EULOGY

ELISHA PORAT

What he wanted was
to hide among the simple
or among the small
whose greatness
he had always craved.
To be at rest with friends
cloaked in the pride of the meek without words,
and without even a eulogy.
And after that, only this:
To lie below tender shoots
sheltered in the shade of thorns
and to hear nothing
but blackbirds singing.

Translated from the Hebrew by Alan Sacks.

[POET'S NOTE: Elisha Porat, a 1996 winner of Israel's Prime Minister's Prize for Literature, has published more than a dozen volumes of fiction and poetry in Hebrew since 1973. His works have appeared in translation in Israel, the United States, Canada and England.

Mr. Porat was born in 1938 to a pioneer family in Petah Tikva, Israel. In the early 1930s his parents were among the founders of Kibbutz Ein Hahoresh, where he was raised and still makes his home.

Drafted into Israeli Army in 1956, heserved in a frontline reconnaissance unit and fought the Six Day war in 1967, and the Yom Kippur War in 1973. As a lifelong member of his kibbutz, hehas worked as a farmer as well as a writer. He currently performs editorial duties for several literary journals. You can contact him at porat_el@einhahoresh.org.il.

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