(Recollection of a visit there in 1972)
The monuments are granite, black or grey
and covered with inscriptions; set apart,
the Hebrew placed judiciously away
from Christian burial sites; and while the art
of Christian tombs abounds in images
that decorate them — angels, perhaps saints,
or sculptures of the dead — the Hebrew graves
have only letters placed to decorate
their surfaces — letters and dates of birth
and death; no more: no six-winged cherubim,
no images of things upon the earth
or in the sea; no busts of Abraham;
the scriptures, cut in stone, carved, line on line;
and no date goes past 1939.