Judgement Day

It was an ancient burial place
and a mad multitude of souls—their invisible
presence in the thickening of air and a fury
of bones and skulls flying as they dug, and al-
though at first I only watched them, suddenly,
I knew it was the Judgment Day and there was
smoke from a house at the edge of the place and
it was the Jews whom they had burned and I wanted
to weep for I was without a body and lost forever.
But He answered and He said we had all risen,
like our smoke. And again I was calm seeing them
as they dug madly, cursing each other.

Samuel Menashe
Midstream, 1957