“I shall not murder / The mankind of her going with a grave truth / Nor blaspheme down the stations”

A Poetry Monday for a Rosh Hashanah:


Three Jewish Boys Write to an Ancient Chinese Poet, Judd L. Teller, tr. from Yiddish by Grace Schulman

Li-T'ai-Po, three Jewish boys
send greetings. They spoke
of your poem today at sunset
on the Warsaw Nalevki.

Strange light caressed
the cornices of ruined castles,
a coachman swayed on his carriage seat,
and students crowded the streets of taverns.

A woman clapped her hands, and moved,
like shadow, through a gate.
Like a stray bird, a beard
fluttered between two brick houses.

Gentle light warmed the cornices.
A distant moon shimmered
like the hoop
in a pirate's ear.

The River Vistula was filled, probably,
with the rush of tides and leaves.

The boys would have had you add
two lines to the sunset
about fear.


Source. Teller was born in Galicia in 1912, immigrated to the United States in 1921, where he got a doctorate in psychology, became a prolific commentator and journalist, and wrote poetry in both Yiddish and Hebrew. He died in 1972.

Happy New Year to all who celebrate.

—L.

Subject quote from A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London, Dylan Thomas.