Chayei Sarah 5784

Kentucky – New Earth “3 A. Winter” – Part 1

That year saw a winter

Glittering with frost and heavy snows:

Alaska blew into the country

And birds, victims of the dry piercing wind

Fell onto the hard greenish-sparkiling snow

The rivers were ice-bound

And blue-green squares of heavy ice

were chopped from the wells

And melted in kettles for drinking.

The community was cut off,

As if with a white, flashing knife

From the surrounding world. The drifts of snow

Covered every road and path,

And all the train tracks.

Twilight played its game

In the cold, rose-colored evening.

The distant hills appeared

Locked in white woods.

Green blue shades looked coldly

Down upon the valley and the small settlement

Frozen in ice to the midriff.

Thick rose=colored hats of snow on the roofs,

Straight, slender columns of gray smoke

Rising from the hats

To the deep star-studded sky.

Later, the Alaskan breath abated,

And another wind blew in.

The gray sky descended,

And when the smoke from the chimneys tried

To rise into the air, the eye

Could not distinguish the smoke

From the sky. As if from a fine sieve,

Something sifted continuously,

Day and night. Neither water, nor ice,

It made the snow heavy, and the ice dismal.

When the ice-rain stopped

A pale sun shone.

Each tree was covered with glass,

Each branch of the linden, the chestnut,

And the small evergreen

Was covered with thick glass.

And from under the frozen prism

The black-green parts of the branches

Looked out in fantastic patterns.

At the slightest wind

The long, heavy glassy branches ran in the air.

Tree and sapling ben to the ground,

Roofs sagged under the burden

Of heavy, sparkling, ice-glass.

Work in the junkyard came to a halt,

Iron frozen in the ice

Smelled of rust

And its driving cold kept all away.

In the house the oven burned day and night

But the old house was cold and cheerless.

Thick heavy shield of ice

Appeared on the walls

Like infected blisters on a sick body.

In the pale light o day

The spread a dark gloom.

The gray beard elders on the walls

Froze and grew paler,

The thin-lipped old grandmothers

Grimaced, blue from cold.

Kentucky – New Earth “3 A. Winter” – Part 2

The Jew began to speak quietly,

In a voice hoarse with sorrow,

His pale lips scarcely moving.

His eyes pained and despairing.

His black chapped fingers

Pointed in the air and

Towards the corner where the pale child

Was lying, laid out on white benches.

The yellow light made a circle

Around the small head.

“My dead child lies before you. I look for a place

To bury my baby, my little one.

I am a stranger here among you.

May God help you you have till now

Been of help to me in my need.

Show your mercy to my dead one too.

Grant me a grave for my child.”

And his words with they

Trembling sounds touched all hearts;

Someone wiped a fresh tear,

And another kept groping

In his tobacco pouch

With thick heavy fingers

Searching, searching for what he could not find,

His eyes buried deep in the pouch.

For a while all was quiet and dead.

They heard the flickering of the death-candles.,

The Jew with his hands spread in the air,

His head raised,

His eyes red.

The neighbors, their white heads bare,

Bowed in the face of death.

And then the eldest of the neighbors

Stepped forward, stopped,

And in a quiet voice answered softly:

“The cemetery is open to you.

Choose a place there among the rows,

And dig a grave for your dead child.”

Kentucky – New Earth “3 A. Winter” – Part 3

The Jew bowed humbly,

His face expressed thankfulness,

And quietly he spoke again:

“Yes, one last wish. Like draw to like.

When my last house strikes

I would like my body to rest

Among my own, my flesh and blood;

Our faiths are different.

Yet we are all dust from the same dust,

And we all serve the same God.

And God will reward you for the favor.

I ask a separate piece of ground

To start my own cemetery;

And if I am destined to live

I will repay this enormous debt.”

Tears streamed from his pained eyes,

Running into the creases of his lips,

Losing themselves in the deep hair of his bear.

Kentucky – New Earth “3 A. Winter” – Part 3

After he had chopped the little grave

Through heavy ice and frozen earth

In a remote rise of the field,

The well of tears dried up.

His eyes took on

Again the dry, sharp luster

When he lowered the child

Into the yellow pit,

And the first hard clods

Feel on the white boards,

A frozen, muffled sound

In the cold white stillness,

Only then did his wife find a voice.

Bent over the grave, she shook

With every new shovel of dirt.

Her fountain of tears opened

And her frozen voice broke through,

Forcing itself tearfully into the grave.

She vegged the child’s forgiveness

And struck herself on the chest.

The words poured from her heart,

“Run, my child, run,

And intercede in our behalf before the Holy Matriarchs.

Tell them of our hard bitter life,

And beg them to intercede for us;

That Yankee should grow up to be a good Jew,

That your father and your mother should

Not know sorrow and misfortune anymore.”

The grave kept filling up,

It was filled to the white edge.

The alien field stretched

White and quiet, bedded in snow:

Small white hills here and there,

Glassy crosses for headstones,

And fir trees that reflect

Coldness with their deep green and snow.

Over the white hills and blue valleys,

Over green frozen lakes,

Near yet far, a winter sky,

Hung quietly, trustfully,

A cold even sun

Cast pink signs up on the snow

From blue strips beneath white clouds.