History Is The Gradual Instant

When My Parents Were Liberated, Four Years Before I Was Born, They Found That The Ordinary World Outside The Camp Had Been Eradicated. There Was No More Simple Meal, No Thing Was Less Than Extraordinary: A Fork, A Mattress, A Clean Shirt, A Book. Not To Mention Such Things That Can Make One Weep: An Orange, Meat And Vegetables, Hot Water. There Was No Ordinariness To Return To, No Refuge From The Blinding Potency Of Things, An Apple Screaming Its Sweet Juice.

Like Other Ghosts, She Whispers; Not For Me To Join Her, But So That, When I'm Close Enough, She Can Push Me Back Into The World.

Reading A Poem In Translation Is Like Kissing A Woman Through A Veil.

The Shadow Past Is Shaped By Everything That Never Happened. Invisible, It Melts The Present Like Rain Through Karst.

The Best Teacher Lodges An Intent Not In The Mind But In The Heart.