A Day In The Hands Of The Stormtroopers Poem by Abraham Sutzkever

I

Don't hit. My limbs do not hurt anymore.
These limbs are not mine, like an hour that's passed.
An unseen hand pulls me out to a world
Where there is no death,
None.

I take off my body like a cover of dust.
Like a road wound up on a wheel, I spin in time.
But the pit is not covered with shuddering panes —
It's really a shame,
A shame.

II

Cranberries torn by the storm.
Bunches of beads on snapped twigs —
My body in lime.
Is this I? Where is my I?
Every limb will try
To touch, to feel itself:
Here.
Here.
Here.

Pieces of quicksilver
That won't come together.
Reality has no grip on by body.
No pain — like knifecuts on nails.
Dream is truer —
Drumming in my head:
Madness.
Madness.
And stains before my eyes, just stains
Like radiating hearts of carrots.
How did I get here?
Fled.
When? From whom?
How do you flee? Who gives the order?
The arrow sees sharper than the eagle,
Though he is ruler, she — a slave.
Hush. Live it backward, recall.
No, forget.
No, no, recall again:
Escaped.
You from death or death from you?
No matter.
The mocking man just played:
Instead of you, he shot the dog.
Now the dog howls in your head:
Madness.
Madness.

III

Dawn,
As if I were born anew:
The stains — gone.
One white stain of lime,
Dissolved in water,
Seethes and sees:

I lie steeped in it,
Half-drowned,
And melted rubies emanate from me,
Drip, run away
In lines like poems, plant
A smiling rosy sunset in the lime.

I grow fond of the limepit.
I lie and contemplate:
'I shall not cease to be amazed —
Till night, till late —
At the loveliest sunset
That I myself create!'

Vilna Ghetto, May 1942