Fragment Poem by Abraham Sutzkever

Oh, Lithuania, homeland mine, serpent's bite in my heart,
Storks, vaulted in my memory over your black forests,
Like Kabbalistic signs, gild the rims
Where your fir trees rustle on Viliya's banks.
The body-burners are your fire witnesses.

The body-burners. Day and night, in my bones, ring
Their swinging chains, pleading: Give us meaning.
With the clatter of the chains, my words are
Welded in the copper labyrinths of a dream,
Have no reality — to dream, to rise.
I am an incarnation of the body-burners of Ponar.
My bread is baked of ash. Every loaf — a face.
The sun their memorial candle, and no one knows it.
And when I walk the streets of Jerusalem in the rain,
In its diamond mirror, I see their souls
In wound-colors: Living brother, give us meaning.

And I pray to the sheet of paper: Be cold as rock.
Reveal a miracle. Let my searing syllables
Straying over you, not turn you to ash.

1950