ManicDDaily

Here is another poem which has the dank feel of early winter.  It was written after reading about Father Desbois, a French Roman Catholic priest, who has worked in the Ukraine to document the murder of Ukranian jews during the Holocaust.  It was brought to mind today by Hanukkah (another shining of light), and the terrible news of a different priest (a Russian Orthodox priest) leading a crowd to attack  a Menorrah in  Moldava, neighbor to the Ukraine.

In the Ukraine (sixty-some years later, still finding)

Reluctant shovels prod earth;
roots grip hard; growth
took well here,  the ground
not trod by paths, boots,
only perhaps by light feet running on a dare,
and the fine dart of swallows,
a swivel of darkness against blue-violet,
evening sky;
the underdirt unfolds in webs
of stems as pale, as green, as bones;
coarse hair that might have grown too, white.
Men pause, leaning against
shovels’ long-grained necks; it feels
like gasoline coming up,
a poison surely
that must come out, that wants to come out,
still burns.
The priest extends his hand, not touching flesh or cloth–
“this was the place?”
His voice reminds them of rock–worn, smooth,
soft, hard, a color that seems to them indeterminate–
at least, they don’t know what it’s called.
Looking down from beneath wool cap, a looser collar
swallows unseen, then digs again.
Too late to bargain.
Yellowed pages rumpled
like the inside of that non-priest’s collar, the returning circle
of neck, have been
produced;  the prints of names
(letters quavering like blades of sea grass)–
the smudged “A” of
“AVRAHAM,” the terminal H of
“DEVORAH”–have been again recorded.
Dark eyes’ insistence
on having once seen, has been seen.
Burns coming up, those digging
want to spit it out
but can’t, not here.

All rights reserved, Karin Gustafson.