From A Day In The Hands of the Stormtroopers
Execution
By Abraham Sutzkever
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
Click to hear me recite the original Yiddish
As I must, as they order, I'm digging a hole.
I search in the dirt for what might console.
A dig and a cut. A small worm is shaking
Away below me. My heart is breaking.
My spade cuts him through. Then miraculously
One severed worm is two. Then three.
Another cut: they are four. Can it be
That all these lives were created by me?
The sun comes through the dark of my mood
A conviction sets my arm firm:
If a worm does not succumb to the spade,
Are you any less than a worm?
- May 22, 1942
The Original:
Execution
By Abraham Sutzkever
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
Click to hear me recite the original Yiddish
As I must, as they order, I'm digging a hole.
I search in the dirt for what might console.
A dig and a cut. A small worm is shaking
Away below me. My heart is breaking.
My spade cuts him through. Then miraculously
One severed worm is two. Then three.
Another cut: they are four. Can it be
That all these lives were created by me?
The sun comes through the dark of my mood
A conviction sets my arm firm:
If a worm does not succumb to the spade,
Are you any less than a worm?
- May 22, 1942
The Original:
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