ARAMAIC On a night's drive in an open Jeep you go past signs on corrugated tin: Rashaya, Hatzbaya, Kafraya. As if I sail and travel beyond times, in a living Aramaic land. Only the field radio keeps me posted: an escort, wounded, a chopper landing. And someone, agitated, beset by horrors, hurts both my ears: shrilly, with a trembling sputter, bungles the Hebrew. Translated from the Hebrew by Tsipi Keler. © Elisha Porat