| Thoughts There's an urging in
one's heart, something to convey-
So compelling, on this sunny, new-born day;
Undisturbed-you sit, as thoughts arise,-
No one about-to stifle your sighs....
You've a desire to pour out the despair, the gnawing-
At the window, at early dawning....
You reflect: the world's so lovely, so gleaming....
Plagued by thoughts; do you-want their dispelling?
There are waves of pulsating fears,-
There's a sensation of destruction-
Foreboding, of foreshortened years....
Youthful, budding lives shattered--
Human bodies on fiery live coals embedded.
In tiny houses of prayer, synagogues, "Botai
Medroshim"1
No longer will you hear the trilling
Of passages from the Pentateuch or Prophets. .
Who? And with whom, will there be disputing
Over eternal learning-or plumbing philosophic depths;
Over Rashi's2 Commentary;
Over the "Gemorah"3-with hallowed melody;
Over basic questions, difficult in their complexity?
No Jew on synagogue street shall be seen again
Hastening to the "merkhets"4 on a Friday afternoon. . .
No more will be felt Jewish children's presence-
Assayed by parents on a jeweler's balance. . .
In Polish or Lithuanian Yiddish town, village or
settlement. . .
Silenced are the reverberating Jewish sounds that rang
cheerily-
As if by bolt from the blue-in sudden descent. . .
From whence will now blossom forth a Jewish melody
Or a familiar, modest Jewish word find its way,
Which possesses a charm to the nth degree?
No longer will be heard the Jewish workers voice, so
mighty-
Calling with all its breath
For Freedom, Human Rights, and Equality!
Now-all are united in death....
Deep pains of regret tear us asunder-
That in life, they misunderstood one another. . .
So you sit restlessly by the window,
On an early summer morn--
Trying to lighten now
The grief, that you've so long borne.
1 Botai Medroshim-non-orthodox houses of worship
2Rashi-initials of Rabbi Solomon Yitchok (famedfor his Commentaries on the
Bible)
3 Gemorah-Talmudic commentaries
4Merkhets-public bath-house
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Hero of the Ghetto Year after
year quickly vanishes,
Since the historic Ghetto Uprising....
Yet there still appear before my eyes
Nazi emblems, horrible. . . terrifying!
I see you, Warsaw Ghetto hero-
And the path that you choose-
Your blood seethes in every fiber,
Aware there's nothing left to lose-
But to share a common grave. . .
Yet let the whole world know
That on these cobblestones
Nazi blood will also flow!
You do not wait for death
To shut your eyes forever--
Nor wait for the world, with its bated breath
To note the bloody slaughter.
The world is deaf:-
Deaf to Yiddish outcries . . . to Yiddish weeping!
Call forth, Brother-Sister-as the battle nears....
There's nothing left for you to fear!
If only with fist and club
You sweep all obstacles from your way
And fiercely throw yourselves into the bloody fray.
Vain is the tearing at graves of the dead,
As with the doomed-
Let us with our very teeth rend Nazi flesh, instead. . .
And hurl them into their own flames to be consumed. . .
Brothers! Sisters! Fight
With home-made weapons at your call. . .
Against hated enemy blight! And, should you fall....
Let it be with anger. . . teeth clenched tight!
This anger always a flame will set
Every hour of the day we live....
Never to forget! Never to forgive!
*************************************** |
| The Whip* Stroke after stroke,
in your hand-hateful whip;
You lashed out-maiming, bruising cruelly,
With fiery, flaying leather strap,
In wild, unchecked, deadly revelry.
Not in a dream was this lashing done;
Inflicted on living flesh, on human skin, on broken limb; Tearing at sinew and at bone,
With punishing, unendurable pain.
Teeth bite into lips, leaving them bleeding. . .
Eyes fixed: bulging. . . staring. . .
Human beings heaped-in order lie. . .
Bony, emaciated hands on feet-piled high.
Have they all been put to death?
Can there still be heard faint groan?
A heart-broken sigh? A sob without breath?
Blood-red is each wound, each horrible welt-
Searing blows of deadly strap-now scarcely felt.
Children's bodies you destroyed,
As your murderous strokes seared again and again. . .
Will retribution ever be made?
We will decide-how and when!
Hangman, killer of innocent Jews,
Dripping with their blood. . . body trampler. . .
For the smoke, the ashes, the ovens with chimneys-
You will pay-sooner or later!
We will remind you of the "count"-
Of the victims and martyrs you destroyed, cremated;
You will pay! You will have to give an account: Nazi poisonous spider. . . forever
despised. . . hated!
Martyrs' blood shall congeal in your throat. . .
That your penalty waits-there's no longer doubt!
Only flesh and bones could you commit to flame,
Not our spirit! For our heritage forever will remain!
Is there fit punishment to suit
The slaughter of millions of humankind? Who can conceive it?
What master mind can proper penalty find
For you, Eichman, brute?!
No longer will you plague our being!
The world will erect for you a tombstone
Drenched in human blood, 'neath which you'll lie. . .
Then our people will build anew-be fruitful-and multiply!
* Eichman trial-on television, April, 1961.
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|
Eichman On Trial
You sit, Eichman, in glass cage confined-
As if impervious, unconcerned....
You write of your fallen Reich-
Note each crime apace-
And once in a while
Your evil face
Becomes distorted with a crooked smile. . .
What think you there, bloodthirsty animal?
Cold-bloodedly you sit-earphone clamped to head. . .
Tyrannically enough, faithfully your
fatherland you served. .
Now you must listen to your cruelties, deed by deed.
Oh how I would fasten
Rope 'round your neck. . . stretch it taut-
In payment for brother-sisters. . . kith and kin. .
In my anguish, all maledictions upon you would be brought,
So that forever cursed you
would be-
For lives snuffed.... for all humanity!
Never stilled my agony, nor quiet my wrath will be-
Till your cadaver's wiped from the face of the earth!
No more, for you, guzzling and revelry....
No more swilling from plundered wealth. . .
You will yet plead for your own death!
To your own death you will agree! .....
And your twitching face....
Your smile-a distorted grimace....
Your muzzle-in human cast-
Will be buried in ashen dust!
Yes, in ashes, smouldering. . . smoking.
In a heap-once of your own making!
Exterminator of people,
May you never know rest, nor sleep!
Let the earth no trace of you leave-
And swallow you deep! ....
Never more shall men, women and children
Be forced to dig their own graves!
Let the world now resume its blossoming-
And songs of peace forever sing!* Eichman Trial-June 30, 1961
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| Silent Soliloquy Who
speaks there in the stillness-
And to himself alone. . .
In sobbing tearfulness
At annihilation and the havoc done?
Can a heart turn to stone
When blood through veins courses through?
Can tears dry up and be gone-
When tear after tear continues to flow?
A well-spring of tears that has been collected
In the age-long agony of those we cherished,
Flows now falteringly, hardly detected,
Upon the bodies of those who perished.
With heat-shaken senses and sinew-
All choked-up, sorrow unassauged-
He sits with head bent low-
His honor deeply outraged.
In the stillness, he's heard murmuring;-
His demeanor itself signifies
The longing and the gnawing,
The long pent-up outcries.
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My Dream-After the Holocaust
I am taken by my dream
To the town where I was born,
I stand and view the scene.
Distraught, my heart grows numb within.
I recognize our dwelling-
And the familiar-all about-
The plaster, torn and falling. . .
Full of holes, are my ancient walls. . .
From these holes, toward me stretching-
My little sister's thin bony arms, I see, . . .
I draw them close-my neck to enfold. . .
There's a crumbling of bone....
It's over-and I'm alone. . .-
Our tile-stove still stands there-
Oh, how much of it is lost. . .
Our beloved stove, our saviour,
Protector from the frost.
|
Around you, we children huddled-
My father his beloved "Gemorah"1 studied.....
My mother-her cold bones had warmed-
We-close to it-our lessons brought--
And of our bright future-hopefully we thought.....
Old faded tile-stove Now barely recognizable,
Near you blossomed
The sweetness of my youth.....
And what a future of dreams I wove!
I stand-gape and stare,
At where In its old place in the corner
There still stands our age-old wardrobe.
Probing, digging, searching-
Amongst rags and broken-up toys-
In a nook,
I find an antiquated page
Of my mother's prayer book;
Beloved symbol of her piety-
Only that sole remnant greeted me!
Of a sudden
I hear my father's "nigun,"2
Hoarse, throaty-as from deep excavation-
He laments over "Tilim"3
Chants of restoration. . .
And says, ere long:
"You're within your own home,
My daughter! Sing the Sabbath song!"4
My mother on the threshold stands,
Stooped over, bent, swaying-
With basket in hand. . .
What is it that she's saying?
"Run swiftly, my little daughter, run,-
We are here-with fire and flame bestrewn!"
I'm breathing heavily
I sweat from every pore. . .
'Tis a dream.......
Nothing more!
A nightmare dream of desolation......
Where shall I find consolation?
1 Cemorah-Talmudic commentaries
2 Nigun-sacred melody
3 Tilim-Book of Psalms
4 Sabbath song-"zmires
********************************* |
|
| Longing Tell me, dwarf pine
trees,
Close to the shore,
Where are the hands
That planted you there?
Tell me, little stream,
Clear and crystalline-
Do you long for Jews of yore,
Who, at "tashlekh,"* lined your shore?
Who, upon the tiny grasses, treads,
Close by the streamlets edge?
Who sings songs to you today,
Of love, while on the way?....
Who now your tiny pebbles count,
That now are overgrown with moss?
Whom do dreams now overtake,
At your side, while wide awake?. . .
Do, to you banks, still come Jewish maids,
With hair done up in plaited braids?
Do they still come to the stream
With bundles of wash to be cleaned?
Tell me, dwarf pine trees,
Close to the shore,
Where are the hands
That planted you there?
* Tashlech-At Rosh Hashanah, when Jews empty their pockets, and shake out their sins.
******************************************** |
My Song
My deeply-rooted song-
You do not need a rhyme-
Sing-out your pain so deep,
In Jewish flavor steeped.
My song-
In festive days,
In the light of the sun,
In green-leafed tree of spring,
In new young grass,
You mirror my past. . .
My deeply-rooted song:
You see my aged father
In white prayer shawl wrapped-
And gently you embrace
My mother's mild, wrinkled face.
Now you weave blue bows
Into sister's thickly plaited braids-
And before me, you unfold
Spritely figure of my brother
With black hair, satiny smooth-
Down the middle, neatly parted. . .
And now my song bursts forth in tears
From deeply buried wound, that has long there smarted.
(On a visit to Israel)
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