William Heyen-lII

Of Covenant

 

 

In Vilna Ghetto in 1942 the SS allowed the Jews

a library. In his diary,

 

Yitskok Rudashevski notes the circulation of the 100,000th book,

but does not mention

 

its title. “The book unites us with the future,” he writes, “the book

unites us with the world.”

 

Surely in that book were words in Hebrew or Yiddish

for water, wind, fire,

 

for prayer, pupil, heaven, tree, holy, sin, candle,

son & daughter, angel,

 

& thousands more. Surely, the killers knew what most were, but not

their order or the power by which

 

the soul comes to eventual volume, to aleph, to Israel

in our new bible’s skull.