Paper Bridges: Selected Poems of Kadya Molodowsky

Shloyminke the Blacksmith

Shloyminke the Blacksmith91 Shloyminke Blacksmith, how I've hoarded And kept all your words well-guarded, Just like my wooden dolls. So dear to me, your every word As now the memory of your white beard, As then, my wooden dolls. Shloyminke Blacksmith, how your Pegasus frothed there, When you'd fly off for the distant Vlodev Fair, Returning not by the direct road. In a hole, one wheel would spin, And, Living God!, right by the wagon There would stand a goat. And suddenly the wagon's heavy and, like shears Opening, the road disappears And the highway cannot be found. Next to your frothing Pegasus, Shloyminke, there, Like a good Jew, the goat sways in prayer, (Heaven preserve us all around!) And suddenly, right there, mounds of money lie, And the field grows bright as the sky But not as from God's sun. See how it is: when stuck somewhere odd And groping for the word of God, Your memory is like a stone. 275 ,KTK SIT jwsrn K nypxr-u H JIB ]W tn niyi r s H T^K M pyn TK ^IKT OKII •DDKJDJ;^ 7t !?r5^ K IKS IXIK ayay^i p i IKH; D TK 276 So, you take a gulp of ninety-proof and sigh, Ah! Then memory brightens. You remember: Shema, And the goat vanishes into the earth. Shloyminke Blacksmith, how your frothing Pegasus Stands forged in my withered verses On the bridle of your word. And I've been fooling myself, it's true—92 Why do I need to hear M—ske's bleating review, When I've made a mirror of your golden treasure? 277 1936 ,1935 ...