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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…
A wall.
A blunt wall of human backs, arms, legs.
A gray bulwark with white round stains.
A defeated army in a cave, before maneuvers,
Waiting for doors to open.
Not cages unlatched, in uproar.
No…
Oh, Ghingeli, my bleeding heart,
Who is this guy who dreams in snow
And drags his feet like a pair of logs
In the middle of the street at night?
It is the rascal Moyshe-Leyb,
Who will freeze to…
For some the now is good enough—and that is fine for them!But what shall I dowhen I alwayssee before mephosphorescent questions flashing:Where?Where to?I am ready tiredof hovering,of flickering,of…
Into its own gold, the evening melted.
Bullet laughed midair across to bullet.
Colossal city fought with city, giants—
The sky disintegrated in red fragments.
Hatless, soldiers fly across the…
Now I would also like to sing a bit,
With my poor voice,
Of things that have happened recently,
Which everyone ought to know:
Of the plague and pestilence,
That have happened here this time
In the…
How does it look, the yellow patch
With a red or black Star-of-David
On the arm of a Jew in Naziland—
Against the white ground of a December snow?
How would it look, a yellow patch
With a red or…
Vilna, my great matriarch, an established Jewish city,
Jerusalem of the Exile, an ancient nation’s consolation in the north!
This [poem] is your patched kerchief, like the roof of the old synagogue,…
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…
In the Bronx, in Brooklyn and in New York City,
My cousins all have stores.
Seven cousins with seven stores, like commandments.
Business people with long lists of going bankrupt.
And my family-name…