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Yom Hazikaron<br />
We are sitting at the memorial<br />
Tel Aviv,<br />
amidst a sea of Israelis.<br />
There are songs<br />
and poems and<br />
solemn speeches<br />
that flow through the crowd<br />
on a wave of sadness<br />
concert in<br />
im'Tn di<br />
Yom HaZikaron: We Remember.<br />
But it is not until the first<br />
soldier<br />
walks on stage<br />
that I understand:<br />
It is him.<br />
Ceremony at the Kotel<br />
flowers,<br />
and wander along the tayelet<br />
at dusk.<br />
I see him everywhere:<br />
bus stations, malls, cafes.<br />
There is a gun<br />
swung almost casually<br />
over his shoulders;<br />
reflective sunglasses hide<br />
his eyes.<br />
I have seen him laugh<br />
into his pelephone,<br />
fall asleep against<br />
the dirty window of a<br />
Jerusalem-bound bus,<br />
stop at a kiosk<br />
to buy his girlfriend<br />
And now I see him<br />
in a different light:<br />
as someone<br />
achingly, hauntingly<br />
mortal<br />
Yom HaZikaron: We Remember.<br />
We remember what Israel has lost,<br />
what could be lost still.<br />
-Paula Margulies
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