Green Linden Press

A Kind of Sadness

(Visiting Prague)

I.  The Pinkas Synagogue

In the old Jewish section in Prague,
the Pinkas Synagogue has on its walls
the names of more than 80,000 Jews
from Bohemia and Moravia
who were shipped to Terezin and Christianstadt,
Bergen-Belsen and Dachau, Treblinka and Auschwitz.

Among them were more than 100
who shared my last name—
many with first names of people in my family—
Bernard, Eva, Ida, Julius, William, Samuel,
and the neighbor across the street, Anna,
—and my goddaughter, Hanna,
and my students, Kurt, and Justin and more.

What if we all had no last names, I wonder, what if
we were only William or Esther, Arthuro or Sarah?
—how much more might we then understand

of Jew and Gypsy, Black and Armenian
and Beatrice and John and Paula and Jennifer
all from neighborhoods like yours and mine,
each with parents  and cousins, brothers and sisters
all hoping for a place to call their own—a home, 
safe and gentle in a town like Ostrava, say,
from which 14 people who once shared my family name
were removed and exterminated
in 1943, the year I was born in America. 

II.     St. Vitus Cathedral

In the Cathedral in Prague
I make my confession:

“Father forgive me: I have tired of cathedrals. 
I am tired of stained glass windows
and crypts and mausoleums, and I am tired
of gothic vaulting and of craning my neck
to view yet another rose window,
and I am tired of the tombs of saints
and the tombs of others who aren’t.

And I confess, Father, I am tired of the marble or stone
or glass or wood depictions of the crucified Christ,
his Aryan face, his sad eyes  

and I am tired of angels and disciples interpreting for me
how happy I should be that Jesus is hanging there
on this or that cross or in this or that painting
or carving or sculpture.

And I confess, Father,
that I am tired of being asked to pay
to get closer to the tomb or the altar
and I am tired of signs informing me
that my contributions will go to support
the continuing restoration of a cathedral into which
thousands of good Christians prayed all during
the last world war while around them
my Jewish aunts and uncles and cousins were
systematically collected and transported to
Terezin and Dachau and Auschwitz and
Thy Kingdom Come to which hymn after
hymn after hymn was and still is, being sung.

III.  Side Stepping 

So much of Prague seems blanketed in sadness
and though I try, I simply cannot understand
how so many allowed themselves to be complicit
in the extermination of the Jews.

Even today, brochures describe the tours to Terezin
as a way to learn about "its long history as a fortress
to protect the kingdom until its conversion by the Nazis."

I study the eyes of the elders, here, there,
know they suffered, too.
These are people whose dreams were squashed
in the Prague Spring,
whose spirits blossomed in the Velvet revolution

but still, most everywhere, the convenient side stepping. 
What do these people think, I wonder,
as I stare into the eyes of a beggar
approaching me on the street.

She reeks of alcohol, asks for money.
My voice mumbles, “No, sorry…” 
and I pass by until, having second thoughts
I turn around. She is giving me the finger.

”Same to you, Lady, same to you,” I blurt,
walking on, self-righteous, embarrassed,
then frightened by the second thought generosity
of this particular and privileged Jew 

realizing again
what is also in him—
hidden and quick, ugly and true.   

Michael S. Glaser served as Poet Laureate of Maryland from 2004–2009. He is a Professor Emeritus at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, a recipient of the Homer Dodge Endowed Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Columbia Merit Award for service to poetry, and Loyola College’s Andrew White Medal for his dedication to sustaining the poetic tradition. He has edited three anthologies of poetry, co-edited the Complete Poems of Lucille Clifton for BOA Editions, and published several award-winning volumes of his own work, most recently Threshold of Light with Bright Hill Publishing (2019). More at www.michaelsglaser.com

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2021