Simkha-Bunim Shayevitch (Simkhe-Bunim Shayevitsh)

A.
And lo and behold
Spring has indeed arrived –
Hey, sky – be joyful. Be joyful –
you’re fresh, newborn,
and lie in a blue golden cradle
rocked by the gentle wind.
The swallows sing you songs
and you play with a grey bear-cloud
that wandered onto your lap by chance.
You wake up before dawn
with a dreamy violet smile
with the shimmer of a rainbow,
and the evenings lull you to sleep
with the loveliest fairytales
by the colorful flickers
of sunsets.

B.
And lo and behold
Spring has indeed arrived again –
the tree will send out another root
deeper into the earth
and the birds will build
fresh cozy nests.
But my ghetto-brothers
must yet abandon their homes,
those spun with golden dreams,
and herdlike, by the dozens,
by the hundreds – drag themselves
day after day, night after night
down into the transit camp
to fulfill the expulsion mitzvah.
Their steps, tired and sick,
wobble, stagger like drunkards.
But they are not drunk from wine
and not from whiskey. But from woe and pain.
From despair and bitterness.
Their hands – half-numbed –
barely move, like the wings of a sick bird.
Their gazes – abyss-dark,
like sheep led to the slaughter,
and in their hearts beats the terror
with the sound of clumps of earth thrown onto graves.

C.
And lo and behold
Spring – praise be God – is here again.
The night blows on the silver horn
of the young moon
and is learning a new song
in honor of the Spring that this year
arrived as a latecomer guest,
but like a camel does a mother move,
hunched from the weight on her back,
with five little children straggling after –
each smaller than the other,
bundled in rags,
wearing tattered shoes
bound up by cords.
With heavy “breadbaskets”
like begging bags
hanging in the front.
They’re already spent and can’t walk any farther.
The mother, like a hen,
spreads her arms –
she leaves the oldest on its own,
the second, she curses,
the third she pushes along,
and with the fourth she prays,
and only the fifth she takes in her arms,
though remains standing herself, short of breath,
like a spoiled fish
with staring eyes
and a gaping mouth,
and the load at the rear and the child in front
sway in the balance —
the motherly balance —
up and down
back and forth,
up and down
back and forth.

D.
And lo and behold
the miracle of resurrection occurs
and Spring returns –
but by us in the ghetto
no one cares any more about the hunger
that shrieks from every limb,
and it has also been forgotten
in the death that knocks so invitingly
on dwellings, overlooking not a one.
And like sad, trembling sheep,
one shudders and flutters
before the expulsion decree
out to the unknown land,
so, one shudders and flutters
before the secret Balthazar script:
— To Life or to Death –
and when an old woman sees the hearse racing,
her eyes glow with envy:
— Yes – yes, that person had the good fortune..
And the young man lowers his head:
— Nah – nah. It’s all the same devil…
And the young woman spits three times:
— Tfu-tfu-tfu, let the Angel of Death be my groom.
And even the child drags itself off to the trek
with a pained tear-stained face, stammering:
— Ma-ma-mine, oy, I have no maw strengt,
Oy, put me up on the liddle black wagon…

E.
And lo and behold
Spring – a welcome guest –
is here once more.
The buds drip with sap
and young hearts with intoxicated blood.
But in the ghetto somewhere in an attic room
for ten days straight
a seventeen-year old girl, lonely lay,
with a little smile on her frozen lips,
and with corroded lungs,
and awaited the wagon
that would come for her.
Both her father and mother
would be taken soon
and within the hour
she was due to be taken too.
Before departing, her mother said,
“Itkele darling, I’ll be waiting for you there…
but in the meantime, have a lick of sugar,
eat a tiny slice of bread,
and when you go, wrap yourself well…”
And her father grumbled,
“—What can be wrong – along the way
you’ll at least have a whiff of fresh air…”
But her parents were sent off from the camp
at the break of day.
Her mother tore the hair from her head:
— And where is my Itkele?
Where, have mercy, have you left my child?…”
And her father stood petrified
with trembling lips and gaping eyes,
and tore out a hair
from his knotted beard.
And at home, the seventeen-year-old
waits and waits, waits and waits –
a day goes by, a night comes;
a dawn laughs unrestrainedly
and a sunset murmurs in quiet piety:
the first sentinel is deep in thought
and the last – plays cat-and-mouse –
the young moon peaks in through a crack
and a cloud ensnares it in its pillowy paw,
but they do not yet come for her.
Her bread is long gone;
the next day, a neighbor brings
a cup of hot bitter coffee
and a sniveling incantation:
“They’re probably coming soon –
the world is not helter-skelter.”
A night goes by, a day comes.
An evening is red, breaks into a drunken dance,
and a sunrise moans with piercing grief –
a bit of frost glazes the windowpane
and a sun licks it up with its wee golden tongue.
The sliver of sugar also done with,
she lies with foam on her yellow lips.
On the fourth day, a matron brings
a cup of broth with a heavy sigh:
— “Poor thing, such hunger to endure –
they’ll come for you tonight for sure.”
A day changes places with the night,
a night with the day – two faithful guards,
guarding her empty, wasted sick life.
Her hands grope the top of the chair:
perhaps there’s a morsel there
to put in her mouth,
and they quiver and quake.
Her gazes wander in the void
and her hearing is awake
but rarely is there some cute little mouse
to give her any cheer
with a familiar live chirp.
Just strangers’ steps running on the stairs,
up and down, down and up
avoiding her door, avoiding her door.
The fifth day, she’s glazed.
The sixth twilight, she sips a little soup.
The seventh dawn – she dreams.
The eighth – she is oblivious.
The ninth – her head –
a collapsed coil,
falls back on the pillow,
and her hands – two heavy stones.
The tenth night – she’s dreaming once more –
fellows are swimming, moving, running –
they’re about to come for her,
they’re about to knock on the door.
Bubbles form on her clay-like lips
and the greenish foam froths
and the yellow smile glows:
— “Daddy! Mommy! You tarried so long?!”
Through the slit, the cloud
spit out the moon:
— A holiday today, huh? So bright, bright –
Aha, my wedding night, my wedding n-i-g-h-t…
But suddenly everything goes dark
and her head flies, falls, sinks,
rolls down into the abyss:
— Daddy, Mommy,
M-o-m-m-y, m-o-… — — —

Translated by Miri Koral