Paper Bridges: Selected Poems of Kadya Molodowsky

Dead Sabbath

Dead Sabbath Shadows come at night to invite me to Dead Sabbath. Their hands pressed, Folded on spines— In order not to touch the impure world, In order to observe the dead Sabbath That has burned up the week, This life, And all the holidays.181 Doors swing on silenced hinges. Iron and rust are light. All has lost its heft after millions of deaths. A dead Sabbath rests, And, first to last, eternity sinks. As the shadows float by, Only one pauses near me for a moment. I grow small, stunted And jammed up against the floating pain— Are you, my brother, you? Then I see red rims Around his eye-slits. There's no abyss where I can fall To hide myself from the dead rest. How happy I was, once, When my well was full of sadness, And from living need I Heard a living cry. It wounded and healed my palate, Accompanied my dreams and my waking day. My heart ached for weekday patches, And worn-out shoes on holidays. 397 -px axn ,}pxaijn-tr:i p^ajn rx prnx px trna oxi ^xt? ojn ps raxi^ix jra ppxnijn m ijnrp H ]ixn ixs x x px mpm fx.oxnn - ]a > - ? Y I ps pyosn Djn oxn T'lx e^ iixn pynt: p ^^nyT nyiVD w ^ w p ^xt? ps W5n Djn px i^S r^xtr; itr /•'T px D^ pyw ps ??a cix ^ ^ 398 Now I have rest. Now the dead Sabbath rests. The bread in the oven never finished baking, The children never finished growing up as the day passed on. The old never finished saying the weekday Minkhe}^2 A dead Sabbath choked an entire town. Little shoes, a pair of them, turned up somewhere, The cry of the child was severed in the midst of crying, And doors remained wide open, And silence bedded down On rock and cobblestone. How happy I was, once, When my feet stumbled In Jew-hatred, in want, in mud. Then, I read bright fortunes in the stars, And old belief— Purer than the Vistula's waters— Scattered and snowed over the sorrow.183 Now there is rest, And tears have nothing to fall on. I choke on silence, Even in the noise of day, Even when trumpets sound, I hear no gaiety, Nor even a lament. Now there is rest. I choke on silence, Even when the birds sing, When, at night, the frogs croak wonderful prayers. Now there is rest, The rest of the dead Sabbath. 399 ,]3na *px jsna rx n^? p-n DJ;T m x •DX^ x^^oa ra^a oxn ixs .|XID pa ixn t^x tra ^nxa ^ix x'T'x •'n B^njn D^xn iy ]ix i r n m px ^n inn ^ DTTO •DHD p 7a itjoxn oxn nxs -n^VVn Dxi T I -IXS s ]it H ism 400 ...