Born January 22, 1946
Ashes of Auschwitz attended my bris
they stayed quiet and did not speak their names
a scent that I did not yet recognize
dark gray sky cantilevered from the past
I shone the splendor of coming to be
undergirded by the terror of it
conjoint unravelling of joy and doom
never ever to be broken apart
to love is to love, the question that is
its own answer, to live is to live
this fleeting instant, eternity’s crown,
this spark that vanishes free from a name
the wound of hope bleeds and can not be stanched
beyond faulting I mourn and I bless