The Ghosts Enjoy Klezmer

(Originally published in “Crossing Limits – African American and Jewish Poets”)

The ghosts enjoyed the klezmer concert last night.
	They always do.
The ghosts come from Vilne, from Cracow, from Lvov,
	from countless ghettos and vanished shtetls.

The ghosts have grown accustomed to hearing their music
	in fancy places,
seeing a roomful of people who just sit.
	Nobody is dancing.

Some of the melodies are unfamiliar; 
	some instruments are complicated, and large..
But the freylachs and the bulgars still bring back memories
	of happier times.

So they travel across space and time
like smoke, rising through gray stillness
until it reaches the upper winds.
Dispersed, disappearing, and everywhere present.

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