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Abraham Sutzkever: Execution (From Yiddish)

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:

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