Benediction Line Poem by Menachem Rephun

Benediction Line

This train moves back and forth down the long track of history, invisible to the eye, a slender thread and a pendulum of glass. At each station the doors slide open to invite the freezing air. What year is this, I ask the woman next to me, my own voice rising amid the great multitude, I am afraid, I held on to her so tight but we were lost at the station. She does not answer, for who can measure time here, what season this is, whether the train moves forward or back? Through the rain and shadowed glass, there pass before me a thousand faces like Sabbath candles guttering in the wind. I close my eyes and ask that you remember me, as I have remembered you. I will say a benediction for all of you, now and as long as I endure. For we have only remembrance, though my eyes have grown dim, oh memory that comes before memory, at last made whole. We have only our hearts, rising past the flames and tears of history, it is a tree of life for those who grasp. Do not be afraid, I held on to her, at some other station we must have been lost