4.
Collapsing beside him, I turned his body over
and already it was stiff, like a string about to snap.
Shot in the nape. "And so you'll end up too"
I whisper to myself. ''Just lie still." Rising up
from patience death blossoms in the open air.
Der springt noch auf
sounds above me.
Mud mixed with blood was drying on my ear.
October
31, 1944
Szentkiralyszabadja
Translated from the Hungarian
by
Brett Foster and Erika Szivos
H.N. BIALIK
Ci
ty
of the Killings
Rise and go to the town of the killings and you'll come to the yards
and wi th your eyes and your own hand feel the fence
and on the trees and on the stones and plaster of the walls
the congealed blood and hardened brains of the dead.
And you'll come from there to the ruins and stop before the rents
and pass by the pierced walls and shattered ovens,
where the axe's head bit deep, to burst and deepen holes,
baring the black stone and shears of brick all burned
and they'll look like the open mouths of black and mortal wounds
that have no remedy, that have no cure,
and your feet will sink in feathers and stumble over heaps
of the fragments of fragments and smithereens of smithereens and
defeat of books and scrolls,
the annihilation of divine labor and fruit of working like a dog;
and you will not stand by the carnage but pass by there
on your path-
and the rye blooms before you and pours perfume in your nose,
