Elegy
Ekphrasis on “Last Movement 1996” painted by Samuel Bak No Kaddish rises from this washed-out beige and olive-painted square. The Holocaust is cobbled from the shabby coats, cloaks, scalloped heaps of cloth, and vacant pages strewn about the feet of these three listless players with their instruments, squatting on a heap of cast-off lumber. Bled out, they cling tightly to their faulty instruments, crude bows of unseasoned wood, a cello with an open empty belly. One man wears a gas mask linked by lengthy tubing to the ground—why does he breathe the dirt so soon? Off-center in the...
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