[The bread has become moldy]

By Charles Reznikoff 1894–1976 Charles Reznikoff

The bread has become moldy

and the dates blown down by the wind;

the iron has slipped from the helve.

The wool was to by dyed red

but the dyer dyed it black.

The dead woman has forgotten her comb

and tube of eye-paint;

the dead cobbler has forgotten his knife,

the dead butcher his chopper,

and the dead carpenter his adze.

A goat can be driven off with a shout.

But where is the man to shout?

The bricks pile up, the laths are trimmed,

and the beams are ready. Where is the builder?

To be buried in a linen shroud

or in a matting of reeds—

but where are the dead of the Flood

and where the dead of Nebuchadnezzar?

From The Poems of Charles Reznikoff by Charles Reznikoff, edited by Seamus Cooney. Reprinted by permission of Black Sparrow Books, an imprint of David R. Godine, Publisher, Inc. Copyright 2005 by Charles Reznikoff.

Source: Poems 1918-1975: The Complete Poems of Charles Reznikoff (Black Sparrow Press, 1977)

Biography

Emerson remarked that the best writers often have the shortest biographies. The genius “draws up the ladder after him,” and the world, which had consigned him to obscurity during his lifetime, “sees the works and asks in vain for a history.”

Whatever judgment may ultimately be passed upon him, not much more than his works is ever likely to be known of Charles Reznikoff. He left no fervent disciples. The record he wished to . . .

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