By Dan Alter
What covers where I come from
Ancestors’ ground a floating zone between countries
called the Pale or was that from the shade of their skin
in Christian shadows My father’s eyes
come from names I’ve tried to learn & lost
1100 years of sojourning can’t be wrong but my four
grandparents among the lucky enough
to leave before The trouble I’m starting out in
a gap that widens In the swallowing whole was it all
lost or did their spirit filter to points the letters
mark a hole I’m looking into Yiddish
speakers in the shade of black forests Somewhere near
say Vilna their feet must have touched ground Alter
meaning elder in Yiddish which is sticky with
11th Century German what haven’t you lost
of their art Fog is general all over Ashkenaz
In minutes the shtetl names have drifted Wouldn’t
I feel a whole lot better not rummaging
for origins in that tight a crawlspace Still
five layers of shade make the skin paler
than fog Yes it ended badly but my father
didn’t get his blue eyes from nowhere