A Jewish Cemetery In Germany

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1. The Jewish Cemetery at Newport How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves, Close by the street of this fair seaport town, Silent beside the never-silent waves, At rest in all this moving up and down! The trees are white with dust, that o’er their sleep Wave their broad curtains in the southwind’s breath, While underneath these leafy tents […]...
2. Edmonton, thy cemetery Edmonton, thy cemetery In which I love to tread Has roused in me a dreary thought For all the countless dead, Ah me, the countless dead. Yet I believe that one is one And shall for ever be, And while I hold to this belief I walk, oh cemetery, Thy footpaths happily. And I believe […]...
3. AUTOBIOGRAPHY (POLISH IT LIKE A PIECE OF SILVER) I am standing in the cemetery at Byrds, Texas. What did Judy say? “God-forsaken is beautiful, too.” A very old man who has cancer on his face and takes Care of the cemetery, is raking a grave in such a Manner as to almost (polish it like a piece of silver. An old dog stands […]...
4. In A Breton Cemetery They sleep well here, These fisher-folk who passed their anxious days In fierce Atlantic ways; And found not there, Beneath the long curled wave, So quiet a grave. And they sleep well, These peasant-folk, who told their lives away, From day to market-day, As one should tell, With patient industry, Some sad old rosary. And […]...
5. O Germany, Pale Mother! Let others speak of her shame, I speak of my own. O Germany, pale mother! How soiled you are As you sit among the peoples. You flaunt yourself Among the besmirched. The poorest of your sons Lies struck down. When his hunger was great. Your other sons Raised their hands against him. This is notorious. […]...
6. Françoise And The Fruit Farmer In town to sell his fruit, he saw her- Françoise in her summer slacks- Turning to him, coming back To feel the swelling plums, One held in each soft hand, breast-high, Above them her eyes enclosing him In quietness brushed up to colors, Urgings green, thrustings yellow. A vine-like touch, her promise seemed all profit, […]...
7. What the Sexton Said Your dust will be upon the wind Within some certain years, Though you be sealed in lead to-day Amid the country’s tears. When this idyllic churchyard Becomes the heart of town, The place to build garage or inn, They’ll throw your tombstone down. Your name so dim, so long outworn, Your bones so near to […]...
8. A Fantasy I’ll tell you something: every day People are dying. And that’s just the beginning. Every day, in funeral homes, new widows are born, New orphans. They sit with their hands folded, Trying to decide about this new life. Then they’re in the cemetery, some of them For the first time. They’re frightened of crying, Sometimes […]...
9. In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport Here, where the noises of the busy town, The ocean’s plunge and roar can enter not, We stand and gaze around with tearful awe, And muse upon the consecrated spot. No signs of life are here: the very prayers Inscribed around are in a language dead; The light of the “perpetual lamp” is spent That […]...
10. To Germany You are blind like us. Your hurt no man designed, And no man claimed the conquest of your land. But gropers both through fields of thought confined We stumble and we do not understand. You only saw your future bigly planned, And we, the tapering paths of our own mind, And in each others dearest […]...
11. Germany And Her Princes Thou hast produced mighty monarchs, of whom thou art not unworthy, For the obedient alone make him who governs them great. But, O Germany, try if thou for thy rulers canst make it Harder as kings to be great, easier, though, to be men!...
12. A Hymn To Christ At The Author's Last Going Into Germany In what torn ship soever I embark, That ship shall be my emblem of thy Ark; What sea soever swallow me, that flood Shall be to me an emblem of thy blood; Though thou with clouds of anger do disguise Thy face, yet through that mask I know those eyes, Which, though they turn away […]...
13. Mothers Are a Special Gift Mothers are a special gift sent From God above, They bless us with their nurturing, And fill us with their love. They pick us up when we are down, And when we’re sad they know, They’re always there to lend a hand, And guide us as we go. And mothers are like special jewels That […]...
14. The Tree of Scarlet Berries The rain gullies the garden paths And tinkles on the broad sides of grass blades. A tree, at the end of my arm, is hazy with mist. Even so, I can see that it has red berries, A scarlet fruit, Filmed over with moisture. It seems as though the rain, Dripping from it, Should be […]...
15. The Lightning is a yellow Fork The Lightning is a yellow Fork From Tables in the sky By inadvertent fingers dropt The awful Cutlery Of mansions never quite disclosed And never quite concealed The Apparatus of the Dark To ignorance revealed....
16. Psalm 99 part 2 A holy God worshiped with reverence. Exalt the Lord our God, And worship at his feet; His nature is all holiness, And mercy is his seat. When Isr’el was his church, When Aaron was his priest, When Moses cried, when Samuel prayed, He gave his people rest. Oft he forgave their sins, Nor would destroy […]...
17. Bedtime Story The moon lies on the river Like a drop of oil. The children come to the banks to be healed Of their wounds and bruises. The fathers who gave them their wounds and bruises Come to be healed of their rage. The mothers grow lovely; their faces soften, The birds in their throats awake. They […]...
18. The Barberry Bush The bush that has most briers and bitter fruit, Wait till the frost has turned its green leaves red, Its sweetened berries will thy palate suit, And thou may’st find e’en there a homely bread. Upon the hills of Salem scattered wide, Their yellow blossoms gain the eye in Spring; And straggling e’en upon the […]...
19. To L. H. B. (1894-1915 ) Last night for the first time since you were dead I walked with you, my brother, in a dream. We were at home again beside the stream Fringed with tall berry bushes, white and red. “Don’t touch them: they are poisonous,” I said. But your hand hovered, and I saw a beam Of strange, bright […]...
20. The Things that never can come back, are several The Things that never can come back, are several Childhood some forms of Hope the Dead Though Joys like Men may sometimes make a Journey And still abide We do not mourn for Traveler, or Sailor, Their Routes are fair But think enlarged of all that they will tell us Returning here “Here!” There are […]...
21. For Lucy, Who Came First She simply settled down in one piece right where she was, in the sand of a long-vanished lake edge or stream and died. -Donald C. Johanson, paleoanthropologist When I put my hand up to my face I can trace her heavy jawbone and the sockets Of her eyes under my skin. And in the dark […]...
22. As At Thy Portals Also Death AS at thy portals also death, Entering thy sovereign, dim, illimitable grounds, To memories of my mother, to the divine blending, maternity, To her, buried and gone, yet buried not, gone not from me, (I see again the calm benignant face fresh and beautiful still, I sit by the form in the coffin, I kiss […]...
23. Last Will And Testament Comrades, if I don’t live to see the day I mean, if I die before freedom comes Take me away And bury me in a village cemetery in Anatolia. The worker Osman whom Hassan Bey ordered shot Can lie on one side of me, and on the other side The martyr Aysha, who gave birth […]...
24. Hymn 39 God’s tender care of his church. Isa. 49:13ff. Now shall my inward joys arise, And burst into a song; Almighty love inspires my heart, And pleasure tunes my tongue. God on his thirsty Zion hill Some mercy drops has thrown, And solemn oaths have bound his love To shower salvation down. Why do we then […]...
25. Service of all the Dead Between the avenues of cypresses, All in their scarlet cloaks, and surplices Of linen, go the chaunting choristers, The priests in gold and black, the villagers. And all along the path to the cemetery The round, dark heads of men crowd silently And black-scarved faces of women-folk, wistfully Watch at the banner of death, and […]...
26. Giorno dei Morti Along the avenue of cypresses, All in their scarlet cloaks and surplices Of linen, go the chanting choristers, The priests in gold and black, the villagers. . . And all along the path to the cemetery The round dark heads of men crowd silently, And black-scarved faces of womenfolk, wistfully Watch at the banner of […]...
27. The Folly of Wisdom She is wise in the way that children are wise, Looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes I must bend down to her to understand. But she only smiles, and takes my hand. We are walking somewhere that her feet know to go, So I smile, and I follow… And the years are dark […]...
28. 8 Count from my bed I watch 3 birds On a telephone Wire. One flies Off. Then Another. One is left, Then It too Is gone. My typewriter is Tombstone Still. And I am Reduced to bird Watching. Just thought I’d Let you Know, Fucker....
29. Psalm 30 part 1 Sickness healed, and sorrow removed. I Will extol thee, Lord, on high, At thy command diseases fly: Who but a God can speak and save From the dark borders of the grave? Sing to the Lord, ye saints of his, And tell how large his goodness is; Let all your powers rejoice and bless While […]...
30. St. Francis And The Sow The bud Stands for all things, Even those things that don’t flower, For everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing; Though sometimes it is necessary To reteach a thing its loveliness, To put a hand on its brow Of the flower And retell it in words and in touch It is lovely Until it flowers again […]...
31. Birds at Winter Nightfall (Triolet) Around the house the flakes fly faster, And all the berries now are gone From holly and cotoneaster Around the house. The flakes fly! faster Shutting indoors that crumb-outcaster We used to see upon the lawn Around the house. The flakes fly faster, And all the berries now are gone!...
32. A Memory (From a sonnet-sequence) Somewhile before the dawn I rose, and stept Softly along the dim way to your room, And found you sleeping in the quiet gloom, And holiness about you as you slept. I knelt there; till your waking fingers crept About my head, and held it. I had rest Unhoped this side of […]...
33. Troilus And Cressida Can life be a blessing, Or worth the possessing, Can life be a blessing if love were away? Ah no! though our love all night keep us waking, And though he torment us with cares all the day, Yet he sweetens, he sweetens our pains in the taking, There’s an hour at the last, there’s […]...
34. Reconciliation When you are standing at your hero’s grave, Or near some homeless village where he died, Remember, through your heart’s rekindling pride, The German soldiers who were loyal and brave. Men fought like brutes; and hideous things were done; And you have nourished hatred, harsh and blind. But in that Golgotha perhaps you’ll find The […]...
35. Bat His awful skin Stretched out by some tradesman Is like my skin, here between my fingers, A kind of webbing, a kind of frog. Surely when first born my face was this tiny And before I was born surely I could fly. Not well, mind you, only a veil of skin From my arms to […]...
36. Hawthorns and the like as the landscape falls away The hawthorn in its gnarly fashion Is content to stand alone Berries (the very tint of passion) That birds are wont to feed upon Bloodstain the shortened day A stubborn tree that speaks Of crusty age – its thorns alert To any too-spirited invasion Who comes (it seems to say) […]...
37. I Fellowed Sleep I fellowed sleep who kissed me in the brain, Let fall the tear of time; the sleeper’s eye, Shifting to light, turned on me like a moon. So, planning-heeled, I flew along my man And dropped on dreaming and the upward sky. I fled the earth and, naked, climbed the weather, Reaching a second ground […]...
38. I Have Become Very Hairy I have become very hairy all over my body. I’m afraid they’ll start hunting me because of my fur. My multicolored shirt has no meaning of love It looks like an air photo of a railway station. At night my body is open and awake under the blanket, Like eyes under the blindfold of someone […]...
39. Stuffed I put two yellow peepers in an owl. Wow. I fix the grin of Crocodile. Spiv. I sew the slither of an eel. I jerk, kick-start, the back hooves of a mule. Wild. I hold the red rag to a bull. Mad. I spread the feathers of a gull. I screw a tight snarl to […]...
40. The plane and the blackbird a cold bright sun Two days to christmas A first-quarter moon At a good vantage-point A small white coffin Driven slowly uphill From the cemetery gate To the minimal grave Fifty people attending Unexpected collection Of nettle-stung hearts At a barely-lived dying A shuffling past yews Thoughts finding rhythm A lightness that bred From a […]...