The radioman's prayer

Lord of the Universe

Please, increase your transmission strength

here I

can’t hear, don’t know

if once again you’ve stuck a metal flower in the antenna’s lapel.

You’re so gentle. Why

are you so soft, why are you always

civilian

Can you hear me clearly, over.

Roger, you too sound cut off, you

sound amputated, you

Are in a valley, deployed three-sixty. Hills

and a different Sea of Galilee. Please

apprise me of your transmission strength, with radar

we can’t see your face, why

are you not on treads, why

are you not fighting, should we

send you a mechanized patrol, I

am full of faith

that it won’t arrive and won’t come back...

The radioman’s prayer by Be'eri Hazak, Israeli reservist who died along the Suez Canal in 1973. From Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story, by Matti Friedman (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2016)  p. 130-131, a memoir and investigative study of the Lebanon security zone held by Israel until 2000.