From BRIDGES Volume 2 Number 1

Chronicle

by Kadya Molodowsky
Translation by Kathryn Hellerstein

I am the most outrageous of the moon-singers,
The most unnecessary person of our time,
And I can't be otherwise,
Although I know how it's base, and I know how remote...

At night--even under a dozing mind,
I remember:
In Lodz, suicides of want,
And bread guarded by bayonets,
And all roads blocked
With hunger,
With police,
And with poets.

And somewhere faraway they're beating Hindus
Stabbing Jews in Salonika,
That's how it is in the dancing dream
Of the chronicle.
And in a niche of the wall a beggar marvels,
No one sees his scrawny, outstretched hand.
Newsboys leap past him, randing: --Crash of the pound,
A better dollar!
Near the beggar's feet the snow is black,
The fingers of the newspaper-vendors are blue,
And in the sky stands the Golden Bear
On two radiant stars.
I remember this all,
I remember this all,
The most outrageous of the moon-singers.

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Last updated February 2005
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