— for Primo Levi
As the dusk breaks upon Auschwitz,
crows still perch on weather vanes.
Clouds fly in and out of view. Down the road,
a new green bike faintly rolls, a fine white wine
uncorks, a radio boasts of tomorrow’s great weather,
a warm bed finds itself full of young, early lovers.
Even if the grounds once bulged
with so many unripe souls,
even if the moon’s light was once taken
by heavy braids of cinder and ash,
dusk still lowers pink-purple light here
before every night, as it does over
the promised land — with Heaven
in silence overhead.
A version of this poem appeared in Poetica Magazine, The 2014 Holocaust Edition.
Baruch November is the author of “Dry Nectars of Plenty,” which co-won BigCityLit’s chapbook contest. He founded Jewish Advocacy for Culture & Knowledge and teaches creative writing and literature at Touro College in New York.
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