Rachel Korn | Poems | Modern Yiddish Poetry / 31 CAMELS

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RACHEL KORN / POETRY ABOUT POEMS / DON'T SHAME MY WORD

Don’t Shame My Word
Translated by Seymour Levitan

Don’t Shame my word that tears itself to you
as you tell us not to shame a poor man’s hand
don’t humble it and leave it parched
like a trickle of water in stones and sand

Don’t make my poem live in exile
and go in patched borrowed clothes
like Solomon
crying out among my own
“Three times woe, none of my people know me,”

You took all I had and changed it
made every year day and hour of my life like Job’s
pawned me not to be redeemed
to the dust and ash of the burnt

You estranged me from my childhood with flame and smoke
Remembrance mourns the years cut short
Only the word only the poem is mine
like the seal the golden seal
to your great and splendid silence.

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