*15. dezember 1913 – war eine us-amerikanisch-jüdische dichterin und politaktivistin
• Letter to the Front
Women and poets see the truth arrive.
Then it is acted out,
The lives are lost, and all the newsboys shout.
Horror of cities follows, and the maze
Of compromise and grief.
The feeble cry Defeat be my belief.
All the strong agonized men
Wear the hard clothes of war,
Try to remember what they are fighting for.
But in dark weeping helpless moments of peace
Women and poets believe and resist forever:
The blind inventor finds the underground river.
[…]
To be a Jew in the twentieth century
Is to be offered a gift. If you refuse,
Wishing to be invisible, you choose
Death of the spirit, the stone insanity.
Accepting, take full lifey
To be a Jew in the twentieth century
Is to be offered a gift. If you refuse,
Wishing to be invisible, you choose
Death of the spirit, the stone insanity.
Accepting, take full life. Full agonies:
Your evening deep in the labyrinthine blood
Of those who resist, fail, and resist; and
God Reduced to a hostage among hostages.
The gift is torment. Not alone the still
Torture, isolation; or torture of the flesh.
That may come also. But the accepting wish,
The whole and fertile spirit as guarantee
For every human freedom, suffering to be free,
Daring to live for the impossible…
(1944)
• 26.1.1939 (betr. spanischer bürgerkrieg)
When Barcelona fell, the darkened glass
turned in the world and immense ruinous gaze,
mirror of prophecy in a series of mirrors.
I meet it in all the faces that I see.
Decisions of history the radios reverse;
Storm over continents, black rays around the chief,
Finished in lightning, the little chaos raves.
I meet it in all the faces that I see.
Inverted year with one prophetic day,
high wind, forgetful cities, and the war,
the terrible time when everyone writes “hope.”
I meet it in all the faces that I see.
When Barcelona fell, the cry on the roads
assembled horizons, and the circle of eyes
looked with a lifetime look upon that image,
defeat among us, and war, and prophecy,
I meet it in all the faces that I see.
• Poem
I lived in the first century of world wars.
Most mornings I would be more or less insane,
The newspapers would arrive with their careless stories,
The news would pour out of various devices
Interrupted by attempts to sell products to the unseen.
I would call my friends on other devices;
They would be more or less mad for similar reasons.
Slowly I would get to pen and paper,
Make my poems for others unseen and unborn.
In the day I would be reminded of those men and women,
Brave, setting up signals across vast distances,
Considering a nameless way of living, of almost unimagined values.
As the lights darkened, as the lights of night brightened,
We would try to imagine them, try to find each other,
To construct peace, to make love, to reconcile
Waking with sleeping, ourselves with each other,
Ourselves with ourselves. We would try by any means
To reach the limits of ourselves, to reach beyond ourselves,
To let go the means, to wake.
I lived in the first century of these wars.
(1968)
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