Rachel Korn | Poems | TO MY DAUGHTER

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RACHEL KORN / GRIEF POEMS / TO MY DAUGHTER

To My Daughter
Translated by Seymour Levitan

When I led you out, the earth spurted blood and terror
with every step we took,
the greatest good was sudden death,
and a mother’s blessing-the sure mercy of a bullet for her child.

The flowering acacias went the heavy way of exile
with the sky and us,
the air was burdened with their scent,
breathless, sweet, stifling in tears.

I wasn’t brave enough to look back,
and when I saw my home and my mother’s face in dreams,
I went grey.
My eyes are dry, but all my steps are tears.

How many lives are left to pray for?
How many graves am I closer to the earth?
What door will take me in
and where am I destined to fall?

You and I- the only two left of all our kin,
and I entrusted your young life to a star,
as my mother entrusted her quiet prayer,
my grandmother, her burning tears, to God.

Only you and I-and if I don’t make it through,
my mother’s prayer is crying in your blood.
The call of all those generations is ripening in you,
our village path is waiting for your step.

Moscow 1944

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