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EVERYTHING LOOKS SMALLER
An old man with a cane
walks towards the Old City
dragging his shadow behind him
though the domes no longer excite him
nor Jerusalem’s honey-colored stones.
The Wailing Wall seems smaller
each time he manages to return,
the climb up and down more difficult.
He has weightier problems now
than ruins and wars, history’s infinite cruelty:
keeping enough food and candles on hand,
the burning pains in his bones,
wondering who will care for him when he’s dead
or, worse, when he’s dying—
If only he could return
to the bustling markets of the Lodz Ghetto
before he fled just in time, ca. 1941,
but, like everything else,
they too would seem smaller than memory.