Selected poems from Terra Treblinka: Holocaust poems
There Are Children |
There are children all over the yard,
hidden well in bushes, spectacled trembling through the hot air, exhaling tremors under my bare feet. At noon everything stands still. Small windows are peering at me toying with my beard’s reflections. There are children all over, their fingers crisscrossing the yard like scissors, standing in line for a hot bowl of soup. There are children all over the yard cuddled in corners, crawling under grass blades, holding their breath under mushrooms, dripping on walls, clotting in a split second, pressing their hands to my palm. In silent stillness all over the yard. |
Eyes
|
Eyes from the ashes
collecting dust on shelves in rusting, locked sheds in Poland. Eyes from the ashes forgotten for decades on snowy peaks of the Carpathian Mountains. Collected meticulously in post-war archives. Classified by diameter and focus. Eyes from the ashes wondering, searching for other eyes from the ashes in Europe’s streams and rivers, analyzed by paleontologists in rock fragments in riverbeds. Eyeless ashes spreading on fields, polluting the German countryside. Eyes alone piling up, filling up citadels of ancient cities. Eyes alone floating in the vacuum of the world. Eyes without ashes entombed in the belly of the earth which does not reject even one of them. |
Streets Paved |
Mountains of dirty snow
melt down streets paved with Jews. Dirty snow mixes with beards and ear locks. Sweeps away hunchbacks with long, black, frayed gabardines and a pregnant woman with a checkered kerchief. Melting snow in ditches drags down voluminous Talmuds and Mishnas. Torah scrolls and Sabbath meals of gefilte fish, herring bones and pieces of challah mixed with dirty snow running down streets paved with Jews wrapped in black and white prayer shawls and skullcaps. Dirty snow sweeps streets paved with Jews, pushes them to muddy riverbanks, leaves them stuck between roots. |