Poem: Yeshiva in the Pale, January, 1892

Early morning, as Cossacks on horseback

circled the old wooden synagogue, chants

seeped out like smoke through the walls. Black

hatted elders inside shut their eyes and danced

in circles of their own before the holy ark.

Prayer deepened the air as one fat soldier nailed

the Tsar’s seal to the door: CLOSED. Then a spark

cast from somewhere near the rising sun sailed

across the wintry sky, encircling soldier

and temple, nuzzling rooftree, gable, beam.

It found the place where mingled rage and dream

were draft enough to let a wildfire smolder.

One moment shadows questioned the winter dark

and next moment the answer arrived in flame.

“Yeshiva in the Pale” appeared in “The Fiddler’s Trance” (Bucknell University Press, 2001).

Floyd Skloot’s 18 books include the poetry collection “The End of Dreams” (2006), the memoir “In the Shadow of Memory” (2004) and “Revertigo: An Off-Kilter Memoir” (2014).