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).
