Archive
03/08/10
Devorah and Shmuel
Two desperately-in-love Jews, living in Warsaw's decrepitude, Who never left their faith yet strayed, deviated, nonetheless, Not as YHWH-avowing agonistics, certainly not as atheists,
But as wanderers, diasporan dandelion seeds Blown on anti-Semitic breezes, Schutzstaffel winds of evil, Seeking seething, adventitious pockets of sunshine and moisture,
In which to set down their weed roots, Praying they might locate a pasture beyond reach Of the sickle and scythe harvesting fields ripe for genocide,
Where they and their offspring might survive a season or three, Elude the forces spraying cyanide pesticides willy-nilly, The men in their glistening-black-leather goose-stepping boots
And immaculate black uniforms stitched to the neins, Festooned with Totenkopf and Hakenkreuz brassards and insignia — Dressed to kill, those Aryan freaks of nature,
Who came pound-pound-pounding on two Jews' fortress door, A door leading to a rabbit warren of ghetto basements and attics Providing hiding places for vagabonds, tatterdemalions, waifs,
Who tried, daily, hourly, to elude the wolves in Gestapo clothing, Keep from being rounded up, transported, finalized... Two youthful Jewish lovers, named Devorah and Shmuel,
Hoping to outlast the latest outbreak of Teutonic racial rage, Somehow sprout in the aftermath of Auschwitz's demise, In the cracks of its gas chambers and crematoriums gone to ruin,
Knowing that outlasting the blasts of those acrid, ashen drafts Would be beyond the most impossibly unimaginable task God assigned Moses, as he guided his wilderness people home.
But Devorah and Shmuel were destined never to arrive alive, Not in Canaan, not in Palestine, not in Eretz Israel, anyway, Just in Oswieçim,
Where, to this very day, farther than the eye can dream, A profusion of Jewish delusions flourishes, every May, In billowing yellow fields filled with a million entwining dandelions.
03/08/10
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