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Hear

You who dwell securely
In your warm house,
You who find hot food and friendly faces awaiting you
When you return home in the evening:
Consider whether this is a man.
Who works in the mud
Who knows no peace
Who struggles for a crust of bread
Who dies at a 'yes' or a 'no.'
Consider if this is a woman
Without hair and nameless
Without the strength to remember
With eyes that are empty and a
womb that is cold
Like a frog in the winter
Meditate on the fact that this has taken place:
I commend these words to you.
Engrave them on your heart
When you are at home, when you walk on your way
Lying down, rising up,
Repeat them to your children.
Or may your house disintegrate
May disease make you powerless
May your children turn their faces
away from you.
 

February 21, 1944

I would like to believe that something,
Something other than death has undone you.
I would like to be able to describe the strength
With which we desired at that time
(We who were already submerged)
To be able once again
To walk together, free, under the sun.
 

The Song of the Crow

'I have come from far off
To bring bad news.
I flew over the mountain,
I flew through the low cloud,
My belly was mirrored in the swamp.
I have flown without rest
For a hundred miles without rest
So as to find your window,
So as to find your ear,
To bring you the sad news
Which will take the joy from your sleep,
Which will spoil your bread and wine,
Which will sit every evening on your heart.'
Thus he sang, dancing despicably
On the other side of my windowpane, there, on the snow.
When he grew silent, he looked around, evilly,
He made the sign of the cross on the ground with his beak,
And opened wide his black wings.
 

To Sing

... But then when we begin singing
Our good, foolish songs
It would happen that everything
Was just like it had always been.
 
A day was only a day
Seven days made a week.
To kill someone seemed a terrible thing:
To die, something far off.
 
And the months passed so very quickly,
But there were still so many ahead of us!
Once again we were only young people:
Not Martyrs, not criminals, not saints.
 
This and other things came into our minds
As we continued to sing
But these thoughts were like clouds,
And so difficult to explain.
 

Parting

It's getting late, my dear ones:
And so I won't take bread or wine from you.
But only a few hours of silence,
The tales of Peter the fisherman,
The musky odor of this lake,
The ancient smell of burning twigs,
The squealing chatter of the gulls,
The gold of the lichen which appears gratis on the rooftops,
And a bed, where I'll sleep alone.
In exchange, I'll leave nebbish poems like these for you,
Written to be appreciated by five or six readers:
Then we'll all go off, each under the weight of his own burden,
Since, as I was saying, it grows late now.