Caves, gape open,
Split open under my ax!
Before the bullet hits me —
I bring you gifts in sacks.

Old, blue pages,
Purple traces on silver hair,
Words on parchment, created
Through thousands of years in despair.

As if protecting a baby
I run, bearing Jewish words,
I grope in every courtyard:
The spirit won't be murdered by the hordes.

I reach my arm into the bonfire
And am happy: I got it, bravo!
Mine are Amsterdam, Worms,
Livorno, Madrid, and YIVO.

How tormented am I by a page
Carried off by the smoke and winds!
Hidden poems come and choke me:
— Hide us in your labyrinth!

And I dig and plant manuscripts,
And if by despair I am beat,
My mind recalls: Egypt,
A tale about grains of wheat.

And I tell the tale to the stars:
Once, a king at the Nile
Built a pyramid — to rule
After his death, in style.

Let them pour into my golden coffin,
Thus an order he hurled,
Grains of wheat — a memory
For this, the earthly world.

For nine thousand years have suns
Changed in the desert their gait,
Until the grains in the pyramid
Were found after endless wait.

Nine thousand years have passed!
But when the grains were sown —
They blossomed in sunny stalks
Row after row, full grown.

— — — — — — — — — —

Perhaps these words will endure,
And live to see the light loom —
And in the destined hour
Will unexpectedly bloom?

And like the primeval grain
That turned into a stalk —
The words will nourish,
The words will belong
To the people, in its eternal walk.

Vilna Ghetto, March 1943