Holy Beggars

Little Yidlah who mingled

your wails with hosannas!

Herring-and-onion Yidlah

whose poverty held holiness!

The Rabbi turned modern

and preaches Existenz

but the Light of the Ancient

shines rarely

on stained-glass windows,

the organ, the mixed chorus.

But I remember your stinking doorways,

the flies, the smell of cabbage and soup-bones

(and the pale youths chanting

from the Illumination,

starlight under their black skull-caps.)

The poorest of you lighted

festival linen

with silver candelabra.

Everything sang, everything sparkled.

And the Light ofthe Ancient

shone into the bedroom

where man and wife were hallowed

and into the kitchen

to bless the bread and wine.

It shone on the dog at the lamp-post,

on the children playing in back-alleys,

on the rabbi who smelled of fish

and on his scrawny wife.

Nation of beggars

who carried your beards

with the pride of the anointed,

your poverty held holiness

as the puddles of your dirt alleys

held the sky's blue fragments.