Sim Shalom for Beth Olam

This poem I wrote for the Jewish Cemetery where I used to live. It's based on what happened when I went there. It has been published in the Jewish Studies Journal 2011 Edition of Queens College, CUNY. And now I have to bury my mom......

Sim Shalom for Beth Olam

It’s Passover.  The sun is traveling in the sky
Its rays sprint around, soon they’ll say goodbye.
Tonight will be a Seder night. One week from now,
It’s the Holocaust Remembrance Day.
In my neighborhood, I stroll down the street alone
Many strangers pass by, whom I don’t know.
My heart is calling out for meanings
I pass through the nearby park, to see it.
And I continue walking further down,
And then, not too far away, I stop.
Here! There is the gate of
The Jewish cemetery—
I’m standing right in front of it.
Above, in the inscription—
I find a white Star of David.
A double fence encircles
The Beth Olam, but not all of it.
The black fence of iron—outside,
The green fence of wood—inside.
And as I walk and walk,
I’m right next to the fence
Reading the inscriptions
On the headstones that stand erect.
There’s a Mother, there’s a Father,
A Grandmother, A Grandfather,
There’s an Uncle, there’s an Aunt.
There's a Daughter, there's a Son,
Those who were once
Someone's neighbors, someone's friends,
Smiling, loving, laughing, crying,
Yes, generations and generations—
The Children of Israel.
And on their graves, these words stand out:
“Rest in Peace”. In my ears, they echo:
The Hebrew Name for G-d is also Peace—Shalom.
Behind their names, behind the inscriptions
It’s the ongoing Jewish history.
And many of them were born,
So many, many years ago.
And as I try to read more and more of the names
I find that it’s not possible to do so
For all the graves.
Some of the headstones with the engravings
Have toppled over, splitting into pieces.
And my heart trembles for what is missing.
But that is not all—here,
You need to hear and know:
In the green grass, between the grave stones,
Some heartless people have thrown garbage
As if they didn’t really know?
For them as well, it’s a divine decree:
“…For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
The circle of life never stops.
After dawn, there’s dusk
After day, there’s night
What is now gone,
Will come back at a later time.
So I returned as well to the Beth Olam
Trying to clean up.
And here, this went into the black trash bag:
Beer bottles and cans recklessly
Thrown onto the graves,
A few lottery tickets, stray cups, broken plates,
Other plastic bags of unknown origins,
Along with dirty candy wraps.
Further away, by the fence
There is a muddy black bag,
Half of which is stuck in the ground,
It breaks as I try to pull it out,
From it, dirty rags fall out, there’s a carpet,
And a burned coconut rolls onto the ground
Along with three bottles of same shape
One of them is still carrying its label.
“Holy Water Perfume”–marked with a cross.
And as I raise the bag,
It’s so heavy, so back to the ground it falls:
Long worms emerge, they start to crawl.
It’s sickening; that was their abode.
There, my black trash bag is now full.
I almost can’t believe my eyes.
I walk around the 100 year old headstones
And I wonder: Who will come
To put them back where they belong?
After years and years, some got stuck in the ground.
I try to raise them back to their proper place
But their heavy weight outweighs me
I’m small and powerless for them. 
As I prepare to leave,
These words ring in my ears
The wise men of many generations have said so,
“We learn more from the dead
Than from the living because the living convey
The teachings of the dead, and in doing so
Bring them back to life.”
Now there is the calling
Of the eternal ones to the living:
Come, you who can, come you who care.
For those who deserve eternal peace cannot now rest
For on their graves, some strange fellows
Have made such mess.
You—who have eyes to see, ears to hear,
A mind to think, a heart to feel,
Don’t let the graves stand there alone!
Come to the Beth Olam
Raise up the headstones,
Cherish the memories
Of the eternal ones and honor them.
And if there is no one to come and help
Then ask yourself,
Until when should they be calling out,
“Sim Shalom. G-d, establish peace,
Shema Yisrael!”

Jewish Nostalgia (1939): Poetic Eulogy written by my grandfather

As far away we'd be
A link will always bind us
And there's no power in this world
To break it or untie it.

It's the unseen link
Knitted from thoughts and longing
More powerful than
The silk or wool string.