Jewish Lesson. (Poetry).(Poem)

Midstream, July, 2003 by Century, I.

JEWISH LESSON 
 
   One day Yiddish stopped speaking to me. 
   she became as deaf and dumb to my wanting cries 
   as a rebbetsin to the wooing of an evangelist. 
   I ran through the streets like a chicken 
   holding its head in its hands, shouting 
   "Yiddish, redt tsu mir Yiddish." 
   The neighbors kept their tongues. 
   Forsaken, I turned to ABCs 
   and grew up a Yiddish child 
   hiding in an American adult. 
 
   On the subway one day, I heard Yiddish 
   and followed two Chasidim 
   to a shtetl of brownstones in Brooklyn 
   where Yiddish was as common as cholent on Shabbos. 
   Though I was shaven and bareheaded, they asked me to stay 
   on my vow to learn Aleph Beis. 
   Surrounded by mameloshn and Torah, 
   I found a new home.