In the Shtetl, G-d Does Not Only
by Barbara Krasner
After Joseph Brodsky
In the shtetl, G-d snuffs out the lights
after the mamas light the Shabbos candles,
say the bracha, and the tatehs have pressed
the week’s blessing into kinderlach heads,
and thanked G-d for the challah. G-d ushers
the men into shul, swishes about the women,
sways with the davening men in their tallism.
G-d is with the children on Sundays
swimming in the Brok River, with the women hauling
water in their chipped enamel pots
from the communal pump in the market square.
G-d pats the tuchuses of the little boys late for kheder.
He pours honey over their stubby fingers as they learn
the alphabet. G-d brings the breeze to dry the clothing
girls wrap on the lines. G-d is with the ropemaker
as he twists the hemp, with the tailor
as he chalks the seams,
with the butcher as he kashers today’s cuts,
with the village idiot as neighbors toss hard-earned
zlotys into his metal cup, a donation from the tinsmith.
G-d is with all the inhabitants of the shtetl
until the tanks and bayonets come.
His presence is a debt they cannot pay.
Barbara Krasner holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. The author of two poetry chapbooks and three novels in verse, her poetry has also appeared in Minyan, Nimrod, Cimarron Review, ONE ART: A Journal of Poetry, Paterson Literary Review, and elsewhere. She lives and teaches in New Jersey.
