After Looking into a Book Belonging to My Great-Grandfather, Eli Eliakim Plutzik by Hyam Plutzik

After Looking into a Book Belonging to My Great-Grandfather, Eli Eliakim Plutzik

by Hyam Plutzik

(published in his book, Apples from Shinar, Wesleyan UP, 1959 and here)

I am troubled by the blank fields, the speechless graves.

Since the names were carved upon wood, there is no word

For the thousand years that shaped this scribbling fist

And the eyes staring at strange places and times

Beyond the veldt dragging to Poland.

Lovers of words make simple peace with death,

At last demanding, to close the door to the cold,

Only Here lies someone.

Here lie no one and no one, your fathers and mothers