No matter how far I am from Israel, I am very near on Memorial Day.  It is as if they are within me, the soldiers who have died defending  our country all these years.  Even when I am critical of the policies – and it is rare that I am not critical – I believe in those people who believed in defence.  Not to be victims.

Here’s a poem by Yehuda Amichai “And Who Will Remember Those Who Remember”.

AND WHO WILL REMEMBER THOSE WHO REMEMBER

1.

Verses for Memorial Day—A hymn of remembrance

for those who died in war. Even the remembering generation dwindles and dies,

half in ripe old age and half in unripe old age,

and who will remember those who remember?

2.

How does a tombstone begin? A car burns in red flame

in Sha’ar Ha’Gai. A car burnt black. The skeleton oa car.

The frame of another car burnt in an accident somewhere else.

The frame was painted in anti—rust color, red

as that flame. Next to the frame a wreathe of dried flowers.

Dried flowers compose a Wreath of Remembrance,

Dried bones compose a Vision of the revival of dried bones.

And somewhere, far from here, hiding between the bushes,

is a cracked marble slate and on it names. A branch of oleander

hides most of them like a shock of hair on the face of a beloved.

But once a year the branch is moved aside and the names are called,

and in the firmament a flag flying half mast furled gaily

like a flag flying full mast—easy, easy, happy in its colors and in the wind.

And who will remember those who remember?

3.

And how does one stand in a Memorial Ceremony? Erect or bent,

rigid like a tent or limp as in mourning,

head humbled like the guilty or raised in defiance against death,

eyes wild or frozen like the eyes of the dead,

or shut, to view the stars within?

And what is the best time to remember? Noon

when the shadows are hidden beneath our feet, or dusk

when the shadows grow long like longings

with no beginning and no end, like God?

4.

And what shall we sing in the service? Once we sang the song of the valley,

“Who opened fire and who there fell,/ between Beit Alfa and Nahalal.”

Now I know who it was that opened fire

and I know the name of the one who fell.

He was my friend.

5.

And how shall we mourn? In the dirge of David for Jonathan and Saul,

“Lighter than eagles, braver than lions,” shall we lament.

Had they really been lighter than eagles,

they would have flown up, above the war

and not been injured. We would have seen them from below

and said, “Here are the eagles, here is my son, here my man, here my brother.”

And had they really been braver than lions

they would have stayed lions and not died like humans.

We would have fed them from our hands

and stroked their golden manes.

We would have tamed them in our homes, with love:

my son, my man, my brother, my brother, my man, my son.

6.

I went to the funeral of Ehud who was torn apart in a bombing,

far from here, newly dead in a new war.

And they told me to go to the new funeral home:

“It’s over there right next to the big dairy.

If you follow the scent of milk

you can’t go wrong.”

7.

Once I was walking together with my small daughter,

and we met a man who asked how I was and I asked

how he was—as in the Bible. And she asked, how

do you know him? And I said, “He was with me in the war.”

And she answered and asked, “If he was with you

in the war, how is it that he is not dead but still lives?”

8.

No one has heard of the fruit of the jasmine.

No poet has sung a hymn in its praise.

All sang drunken to the jasmine flower,

its strong aroma, the whiteness of its pale leaves,

the power of its flowers and the strength of their lives,

short like the life of a butterfly and the life of the stars.

No one has heard of the jasmine fruit.

And who will remember those who remember?