Schoolwork and Memorial Day

When my kid asks for help with his homework, I don't expect to have an emotional reaction (other than possibly the natural frustration of doing homework with a child who is frustrated himself). But soon before Yom Hazikaron [Memorial Day] last year, BSM asked me to help him with his Language Arts homework, which was very light analysis of "My Brother Yonatan," a poem by Rivka Elizur, and I ended up crying. 

Fair warning: I just read the poem again, and now I'm crying again. So read at your own risk. Background for the poem is that (a) in Israel, the very somber Memorial Day is immediately followed by the very joyous Independence Day and (b) yes, seven-year-olds are rightfully assigned poems like this in school.

Here is a link to the poem. If you click on the headphones icon at this link, you can listen to a recording of the poem.

I must include a translation here, but my translation is a bare ghost of the original Hebrew, which has a subtle rhyme scheme and meter. I don't think I could ever capture it all in English, and certainly not without days and weeks of work.

"Yonatan My Brother" Rivka Elizur

Yonatan my brother!
He was my brother
He isn't anymore...
And my mother is always sad
Very sad.
She sits sits...
Is silent thinks...
In front of the picture of my brother Yonatan.

And I am Michael
I'm the little one,
And my brother in the Mountains of Chevron fell
And didn't come back...

The enemy in his hordes of thousands
Battled then
Toward Yerushalayim, to the capital,
And my brother and with him his friends
Fought heroically
And stopped the enemy that was fighting
With all their might...
That's what my mother told me.

Yonatan my brother!
He's wearing in the picture
His hat, a knit hat
To keep him warm in the evening,
At night, while on guard
At the post on the mountain...
And his eyes in the pictures are laughing... and all in all...

It's like he never fell killed
It's like he's alive and he's my brother Yonatan
And I am his little brother
And maybe in a little bit
We will walk hand in hand
In the square. And we'll be happy with everybody
And we'll dance and we'll sing... And yet.
She's sad, my mother
And my brother Yonatan disappeared.
He isn't, he isn't with me.

I sat in my room in the corner
And my eyes were looking at the picture...
Then my mother looked at me suddenly
And she said: Michael!
It's a holiday today, my son, for the country.
A holiday for the State of Israel.

Come let's go out in the square to the People
And we'll celebrate and we'll be happy.
Yonatan in the mountains did fight
For this...

Look Michael, at the picture
Doesn't it seem
As if he's also happy...
On this day of nation-wide celebration?

And we went out to celebrate in the streets...
And my brother Yonatan
Is watching us go
With openhearted eyes.

And now I'm crying all over again. Memorial day is hard.