I want to write a poem in Yiddish
and not any poem, but the poem
I am longing to write,
a poem so Yiddish, it would not
be possible to translate,
except from, say, my bubbe’s
Galizianer to my zayde’s Litvak
and even then it would lose a little something,
though, of course, it’s not the sort of poem
that relies on such trivialities, as,
for example, my knowing how to speak
its language—though, who knows?
Maybe I understand it perfectly;
maybe, in Yiddish, things aren’t any clearer
than the mumbling of rain on cast-off leaves.…
Being pure poem, pure Yiddish poem,
my Yiddish poem is above such meditations,
as I, were I fluent in Yiddish,
would be above wasting my time
pouring out my heart in Goyish metaphors.
Even Yiddish doesn’t have a word
for the greatness of my Yiddish poem,
a poem so exquisite that if Dante could rise from the dead
he would have to rend his clothes in mourning.
Oh, the drabness of his noisy,
futile little paradise
when it’s compared with my Yiddish poem.
His poems? They’re everywhere. A dime a dozen.
A photocopier can take them down in no time.
But my Yiddish poem can never be taken down,
not even by a pious scribe
who has fasted an entire year
to be pure enough to write my Yiddish poem,
which exists—doesn’t he realize?—
in no realm at all
unless the dead still manage to dream dreams.
It’s even a question
whether God Himself
can make out the text of my Yiddish poem.
If He can, He won’t be happy.
He’ll have to retract everything,
to re-create the universe
without banalities like firmament and light
but only out of words extracted
from the stingy tongues of strangers,
smuggled out in letters made of camels,
houses, eyes, to deafen
half a continent with argument
and exegesis, each refinement
purified in fire after
fire, singed almost beyond
recognition, but still
not quite consumed, not even
by the heat of my Yiddish poem.