Diminution

ELISHA PORAT

With every generation I am diminished:
My children I share with my wife,
In my grandchildren I am a junior partner.
Of my great grand-children I have an eighth
Or less. And then there are the third
And fourth and fifth generation,
And those who have neither names nor nicknames.
I shrink, approaching zero, and the branches
On my family tree lengthen
Into my future; going back to my roots,
Sinking down to the ultimate depths,
The warm void where my life begins.

Translated from the Hebrew by Eddie Levenston

Elisha Porat writes on a kibbutz in Israel.

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