The writer offers this poem in gratitude to Dr.
Wiesel and in honor of all the Moshes past and present.
This is a morning reflection after reading Night
during a late winter storm this year. The language
is indebted.
Young Eliezer Wiesel
listens to Mosha the Beadle
concludes
each person has a unique gate into the orchard of
mystical truth
eternity is time when questions and answers become
one
Moshe the Beadle
returns from the pit of death
tells his story
story of his death
miracle
No one listens
His people turn away
Weary
Moshe the Beadle grows silent
Arguments stone the messenger
Do you not recognize their politeness
even acts of kindness
Suddenly
without warning
(as if there were no warning signs)
the race toward death begins
degrees
orders
prohibitions
the ghetto
Fenced in by barbed wire
life returns to normal
(read isolated, imprisoned, deluded:
let’s worry about potatoes and fine points
of domestic morality)
until the shock of deportation
“… weariness like molten lead began
to settle in the veins, the limbs, the brain.”
Unannounced
indiscriminate assaults descend upon the people
like hail from a fast approaching storm
thundering the weariness away
into chaos
waiting room
offering counterfeit joy
at the command to begin the procession toward death
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