Welcome to the online edition of the Venetian Jewish Anthology.
It is divided into four sections:
All materials are considered drafts at this stage and may not be
reproduced. They are for your personal use only.
A Walk to the Ghetto: Venice, 2006
for Shaul Bassi
As Vivaldi's children ply their bows, cases
open for coins, the bronze Goldoni leans
on his cane above the commedia
of Rialto crowds, a city that passes
and passes. Masks smirk from every third
window, forged passports of the heart.
If Venice changes us, it's as a thirst
that can't be quenched, a thread that tangles
etymologies, where the sea insists
on the fundamental and the sottoportego
tunnels to new light. In one yellow campo
shaped like a badge, walling in and walling
out are balanced on wooden pilings
a thousand years old, allegedly
immune to decay. Green shutters are closed
to eyes and afternoon, and muffle praise
the cantor utters on the highest floor
where prayers rise like heat or are scrawled
and dropped, frail boats on the boundary canal.
Across the stone pavement, soccer balls spin
between boys careful to avoid the shrine
where Auschwitz is whispered
under a marble tally of deportees.
And still the hidden Jew defies all counts.
The rabbi burnt his list of congregants
and swallowed poison, allowing time
for most to escape to new identities.
Survivors in the Hebrew Care Home toss
and turn against Adriatic swelter
as the fan intones "Baruch, Baruch."
This Ghetto of confinement has become
a place of haven, here, where language blends
into babble, and babble, for an instant,
rings clear. Along a narrow chute called
Calle del Forno, impade cakes reward
a taste for exile, a hunger for home.
Will Wells
