We blundered off the street, two vagrant
Americans in too-thin coats
chased by swift-gathering dusk
into the flickering calm and shuffle
of everyday people at prayer.
A hundred fragile tongues of light
bent by every breath, the rustle
of that mother’s grocery bag, the lovers’
umbrella. And then Russian voices
sink and ebb from invisible speakers,
fall on my ears like a deep, distant
lament. Even the soprano pours her song
as if ointment on the bloodied fields
and ravines of Berezvoka, Odessa,
Babi Yar…as if to say, “I see these hills
of bones that were your children’s hands,
taste the burning ashes that were your homes,
your schools, your synagogues.”
Under one of many radiant Marys,
garbed in holy Ukrainian imagination
(gilt on gold, sequin-frosted silver)
he stands, so still in the muted yellow light
away from the quiet turmoil
of this Monday’s vodka-and-cigarette
breath close, he might be mistaken
for an icon himself, were it not
for the black jeans and lack of glitz,
and the as-yet unlit candle clutched in his right fist.
His is no cursory ritual of youth, a quick dip
of knees and multiple hasty crossings
under hovering babushkas who scrape,
with efficient reverence, excess wax from the bases
of candelabras. Five minutes, ten, twenty;
I stand rooted, a prayerless voyeur
unable to look away from the occasional,
painful shift of foot to foot, as if
movement itself—for both of us—
will negate his prayers. For whom does
he petition, this lone survivor
of the unknown: himself, a friend, a brother?
In what silent presence—grim, immense or forgetful—
does he stand so alone? Or have I stumbled
upon the only Jew in the city?
Walking back into the numbing cold
and star-speckled night to catch our train
I discover I still hold my own candle,
slightly bowed in my grip.
I realize too late it was meant to be lit for him,
for him and this city, these people, so ensconced
in mystery they can’t find their own light
except when splashed in red
against a fresh-fallen winter snow.

Copyright © 2008 by Charity Gingerich Share