I can remember / Stephan Pickering

I can remember ... אני יכול לזכור

I. 

in the ashes of Auschwitz
February 2018 / Shevat 5778
there exists no
kol hachavvyot,
the Infinite One bring/ing
all of reality into be-ing.

there is no 'ehyeh 'asher 'ehyeh
who formed Light,
who created Darkness.

II. 

the candles of the Vanished
World are no longer
sown in the seasons of breath.

in 1920 Vilna, Yehu'dit bones
were excavated for horses
to be buried,
all by the tongue of a priest
covered in ambergris.

in 2018 Cyberia alleys,
the malefactor mime cries
as Long Island parhelia
flicker in the seasonal
ice around his little girls.

III. 

the cypress of the
Kingdom of Night are
amidst natz'ri house gardens,
marking in the mouths of
opus dei children the straws
of Poland.

long after midnight we seek
solace in One-Eyed Paritus's
Meditations obliques,
where Sol Nazerman's
zoharic midrashim of
Shabtai Zisel are
narrated by Claude Lanzmann.

the quantum nonlocality
of the corpse of
ha'Kodesh Barukh hu
is the Hollerith tracking
number.

IV. 

Nach uraltem, aengstlich beheutetem
Klostergeheimnis lernen selbst Greise
muehelos Kavier spielen.
– Max Ernst

~~
this is to the memories z"l of 
Rod Steiger 14 April 1925-9 July 2002 
Roman Vischniac 19 August 1897-22 January 1990 
Rose Leamel Ziebell (1933-2007) 
Dottie Sutton (1922-2015) 
and to the Presence of two of my children in Yisra'el 
and the memories of two sons z"l 

STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח"ם בן אברהם
© 3 February 2018 / 18 Shevat 5778 - slightly revised 14 April 2019 / 9 Nisan 5779

[All rights reserved - used with permission]

Child survivors at Auschwitz, 1945. Photo by Alexander Voroncov. 

Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.