Classic and Contemporary Poetry
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL, by ABRAHAM MOSES KLEIN Poet's Biography First Line: Out of the ghetto streets where a jewboy Last Line: Delighting in the sobbed oriental note. Alternate Author Name(s): Klein, A. M. Subject(s): Childhood Memories; Family Life; Jews; Relatives; Judaism | ||||||||
I Out of the ghetto streets where a Jewboy Dreamed pavement into pleasant bible-land, Out of the Yiddish slums where childhood met The friendly beard, the loutish Sabbath-goy, Or followed, proud, the Torah-escorting band Out of the jargoning city I regret Rise memories, like sparrows rising from The gutter-scattered oats, Like sadness sweet of synagogal hum, Like Hebrew violins Sobbing delight upon their eastern notes. II Again they ring their little bells, those doors Deemed by the tender-year'd, magnificent: Old Ashkenazi's cellar, sharp with spice; The widow's double-parloured candy-stores And nuggets sweet bought for one sweaty cent; The warm fresh-smelling bakery, its pies, Its cakes, its navel'd bellies of black bread; The lintels candy-poled Of barber-shop, bright-bottled, green, blue, red; And fruit-stall piled, exotic, And the big synagogue door, with letters of gold. III Again my kindergarten home is full Saturday nightwith kin and compatriot: My brothers playing Russian card-games; my Mirroring sisters looking beautiful Humming the evening's imminent fox-trot; My uncle Mayer, of blessed memory, Still murmuring Maariv, counting holy words; And the two strangers, come Fiery from Volhynia's murderous hordes The cards and humming stop. And I too swear revenge for that pogrom. IV Occasions dear: the four-legged aleph named And angel pennies dropping on my book; The rabbi patting a coming scholar-head; My mother, blessing candles, Sabbath-flamed, Queenly in her Warsovian perruque; My father pickabacking me to bed To tell tall tales about the Baal Shem Tov, Letting me curl his beard. O memory of unsurpassing love, Love leading a brave child Through childhood's ogred corridors, unfear'd. V The week in the country at my brother's (May He own fat cattle in the fields of heaven!) Its picking of strawberries from grassy ditch, Its odour of dogrose and of yellowing hay, Dusty, adventurous, sunny days, all seven! Still follow me, still warm me, still are rich With the cow-tinkling peace of pastureland. The meadow'd memory Is sodded with its clover, and is spanned By that same pillow'd sky A boy on his back one day watched enviously. VI And paved again the street; the shouting boys Oblivious of mothers on the stoops Playing the robust robbers and police, The corn-cob battle,all high-spirited noise Competitive among the lot-drawn groups. Another day, of shaken apple-trees In the rich suburbs, and a furious dog And guilty boys in flight; Hazelnut games, and games in the synagogue, The burrs, the Haman rattle, The Torah-dance on Simchas-Torah night. VII Immortal days of the picture-calendar Dear to me always with the virgin joy Of the first flowing of senses five Discovering birds, or textures, or a star, Or tastes sweet, sour, acid, those that cloy, And perfumes. Never was I more alive. All days thereafter are a dying-off, A wandering away From home and the familiar. The years doff Their innocence. No other day is ever like that day. VIII I am no old man fatuously intent On memoirs, but in memory I seek The strength and vividness of nonage days, Not tranquil recollection of event. It is a fabled city that I seek; It stands in space's vapours and Time's haze; Thence comes my sadness in remembered joy Constrictive of the throat; Thence do I hear, as heard by a Jewboy The Hebrew violins, Delighting in the sobbed oriental note. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE RABBI'S SON-IN-LAW by SABINE BARING-GOULD A LITTLE HISTORY by DAVID LEHMAN FOR I WILL CONSIDER YOUR DOG MOLLY by DAVID LEHMAN JEWISH GRAVEYARDS, ITALY by PHILIP LEVINE NATIONAL THOUGHTS by YEHUDA AMICHAI SOUNDS OF THE RESURRECTED DEAD MAN'S FOOTSTEPS (#3): 2. ANGEL ... by MARVIN BELL BESTIARY by ABRAHAM MOSES KLEIN |
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