KADDISH


    Tonight,
           the history finally written,
                  the family huddles together
      at last,
              from Kholmich to
                       Brookline,
         and the Bronx in between,
                    from shtetl to
        death camp, from
the neighborhood
          to a cemetery in New Jersey,
from Hanna and Chaim, and Isaac Hirsch,
                        to Bessie and Max,
            from Uncle George and
     my mother,
             to Grandma Sarah,
 their faces flickering
                         in the light of a
          vast, weeping century
of Yarzheit candles
                    on my table.


or my dear family,
lost in Russia and in America,
Yom Kippur 1998



All written material © Bill Schechter, 2016
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