TEACHER                 6-21-79

I sat once with an old man

In the Ghetto of Venice

    The quarter where the Jews

        Lived before the holocaust

And I can remember

  How reverently

I sat and listened to him,

A Talmudic scholar,

  As he progressed from one

Profound interpretation of the Law

  To another.


And I could not help but to reflect

   Upon my own ignorance,

And How I paled in his presence.  

But I yearned to ascend, to know 

    And to become purified. 
 
And I felt exalted

When he offered me

  A piece of his bread.