The Old Prague Jewish Cemetery
The names appear through leaves like the driftingof crocus. Occasionally, a stone hoists its prayer note
higher than the winch of knots along a linden root,
and a bole props the space between two rocks like a lean–to.
From a distance all rise like barks unhinged in a barren forest,
none higher or lesser in the corms of May.
Don't let the earth lie too heavy on the heart,
the rabbi prays in whispers mocking every stone.
He no longer believes in the martyrdom of silence.
What words he fails to say, each son or daughter,
alchemized by death, plants as monuments to sod.
At night they sleep in the darkness of their slopes.
Each time a mother picks cotyledon near the path at Terezín,
she breathes the shem of life into the mud and clay.
Starý židovský hřbitov
Jména prosvítají listím jako návĕje krokusů.občas nekterý kámen zvedá svůj lístek s modlitbou
výš nĕž rumpál suků na kořeni lípy
a kmen podpírá prostor mezi dvĕma kameny.
Z dálky se balvany tyčí jak slopaná kůra v holém lese,
obrostlé kormy májové trávy.
Dej, a' je zemĕ srdci lehká,
modlí se rabín šeptem – vysmívá se kamení?
Nevĕří už v mučednické mlčení.
Slova, jež on nevysloví, ukládá každý syn či dcera
smrtí promĕnĕná jako monument do zĕme.
V noci spí ve stínu pahrbků svých hrobů.
Vždycky, když matka utrhne lístek v Terezínĕ,
vdechne šém života blátu a hlínĕ.
(Poem originally published in the book The Hunger Wall / Hladová zeď)
Ekleksographia:
Wave Two
March, 2010
Poetry
James Ragan
James Ragan is the author of seven books of poetry including The Hunger Wall, Womb–Weary, Lusions, and Too Long a Solitude. Translated into ten languages, he has read for six heads of state and at Carnegie Hall and the United Nations. His honors include three Fulbright professorships, the Emerson Poetry Prize, an NEA, and PSA award, among others. Since the early 1990s, Ragan has taught each summer as Distinguished Visiting Poet at Charles University in Prague.