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A Jewish musiker,
Alex Herzovitch,
wound his Schubert around and around
like diamonds.
Morning to night, happy, oh happy,
he ground out that same old
sonata, ground it by rote, ground it
to a…
My steps are set down stiffly
on tired, empty paths.
This morning a little town of Jews
called me “Anti-Semite!”
All of them in wrinkles and in rags
out there pointing at me:
“Him! That guy! We…
Year after year, that cruel monster in the heart
growing, sense of guardedness expanding.
Year after year—generations’ blessing
gouged like a needle into the body.
I have wrenched it with irons…
Now, when my vision turns in on itself,
My shocked eyes open, all their members see
My heart has fallen like a mirror on
A stone and shatters, ringing, into splinters.
Certainly, not every shard is…
A visitor came to the shtetl,
A stranger, with unrest in his step . . .
No-one recognized his unrest. No-one asked him:
“Stranger, are you weary?”
Across the blue sky the evening drew its curtain…
Russia! If my faith in you were any less great
I might have said something different.
I might have complained: You have led us astray,
And seduced us young wandering gypsies.
Precious to us is each…
Pass on, pass on, you lonely grandfathers,
With frightened beards covered with snow,
In the last sorrow, in the final grief
You’re still here, the final witnesses.
Pass on, pass on, you lonely…
On this ancient trunk
With hanging branches, gray flax
I’m a young branch.
To grow: my sole passion.
Green shoot
rising
high
to the bright,
I’ll bring red blossoms
to argue:
World, I’m right!
From…