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When death comes to me, whether in France or abroad, I leave it to my dear wife or, failing her, to my children, to arrange for such burial as may seem best to them. I wish the ceremony to be a civil…
I am a stranger.
Since no one dares approach me
I would be girded with towers
That wear their steep and stone-gray caps
Aloft in clouds.
The brazen key you will not find
That locks the musty…
I inherited naive open-heartedness
From generations of small-town Polish Jews,
And sharp talk
From hot-bathed women in my clan.
A blind June-night mixed it all
And sent me out—
With no…
Not in vain did I vow to be faithful,
not in vain did I tag at your heels.
With the mole I struggled from darkness,
stubborn and under a spell.
You, grief of the nails on my fingers,
you, woe of my…
On the other side of the poem there is an orchard,
and in the orchard, a house with a roof of straw,
and three pine trees,
three watchmen who never speak, standing guard.
On the other side of the…
Not as if it were an accident,
not as if he were leaving Prague and coming to Havana,
eight years later bringing Mama,
to put her behind the cash register,
instill certain principles,
give her little…
The enlightened will awaken, and he who understands will rise up to waken his soul, which will speak to his body; and his body will speak with his evil inclination.
And thus, the soul will…
Bread, bread. The abundance of it dazzles your eyes. In the windows, on the stalls, in hands, in baskets. I won’t be able to hold out if I can’t grab a bite or bread-stuff. “Grab? You don’t look…
Hush little baby. Forty-six years now
the night has rocked itself in my empty cradle
Now a gray head is rocked to sleep with the same tune:
Standing at the cradle’s head
No angel with two white wings…
My Lord, how stands it with me now
Who, standing here before you
(who, fierce as you are, are also just).
Cannot bow down. You order this.
Why, therefore, I must break
If bend I will not, yet bend I…