Log Cabin Chronicles
Lesson in Geology
ELISHA PORAT
>"The anomaly of Jerusalem is not simple to perceive, at a glance, transparent: Mountain platform and chalkstone, an elevated Holy Site." He tapped with his stonemason's hammer, chipping crimson flakes off a stone taken from a wall. "The Flawless red stone of Jerusalem testifies that there in the subterranean depth of the city, all is broken burst and smashed. Like a gigantic inverted funnel - a cistern for Jewish blood pumping, draining into it from all worlds." I remember his lesson as if it was yesterday: the city afloat, the street suddenly swaying, the veins of rust and dim and deep beneath me, the rustle and seethe of a primeval river.
Translated from the Hebrew by Riva Rubin
Elisha Porat writes on a kibbutz in Israel.
Home | Poetry Menu | Fiction
Copyright © 2008 Elisha Porat |