Against the Evidence: Selected Poems, 1934–1994

Kaddish

immortalized and made untouchable. Only he was real in Russia'storment. Only he stood for life. All else was books, and that was the torment. Kaddish Mother of my birth, for how long were we together in your love and my adoration of your self? For the shadow of a moment, as I breathed your pain and you breathed my suffering. As we knew of shadows in lit rooms that would swallow the light. Your face beneath the oxygen tent was alive but your eyes closed, your breathing hoarse. Your sleep was with death. I was alone with you as when I was young but now only alone, not with you, to become alone forever, as I was learning watching you become alone. Earth now is your mother, as you were mine, my earth, my sustenance and my strength, and now without you I turn to your mother and seek from her that I may meet you again in rock and stone. Whisper to the stone, I love you. Whisper to the rock, I found you. Whisper to the earth, Mother, I have found her, and I am safe and always have been. The Ship I saw an ocean liner in the desert, its crew leaning over the railing, as though the ship were plowing through the waves of sand. I was reluctant to ask how a ship came to rest in the desert. The world itself was strange enough, and I did not want to ask questions that would make matters worse. I hailed the crew from my position on the sand 727 ...