Foreign downy snow falls
on the slopes of Jebel-el-Kabir,
cool and hushed it descends
on trenches on armored vehicles
across the screens of memory.
In the misty fog forgotten friends
get lost in me, calling.
Friends whose lives touched mine,
now far beyond the highways
the roadblocks, the rolling machinery.
Once, among them, I happened to see
such pure whiteness suddenly crushed:
pulverized, ploughed, and rising,
then dropping and soundlessly absorbing
ripped veins and a reddening stain.

Translated from Hebrew by Tsipi Keler
© Elisha Porat