Olive in Poland

With a diesel engine to produce olive oil they came
to Poland’s Jewish community in Zamosc
with olive’s ancient meaning of peace
and friendship sealed in a Sephardic-Ashkenazi
union between great grandma Dena Manzis
and great grandpa Rabbi Yaakov Zoberman,
not knowing—how could they?—that the barbarian
Nazis would destroy all—Jews, oil, tree, engine, press.
So many years later I visited Zamosc, sans
its 14,000 Jews, to recite Kaddish
in the Sephardic shul turned museum
where once my family worshipped.
The taste of that bittersweet olive
I could almost inhale.