Original: “Fayer un shney”
(”פֿײַער און שניי“)
From: In si-geyt baym yam
(אין סי-געיט ביים ים)
pp. 30–31
Year: 1957
Author: Aliza Greenblatt
(עליזה גרינבלאַט)
Translator: Judith Greenwood
Class: Yale JDST 418 with Josh Price
Embedded Files
“Fire and Snow”
1.
Every start in drunkenness,
Every end in sullenness,
Every yesterday drags on,
Blindly draw the thread along.
2.
The things that can revive are rife
With joy and silent sore,
My child will forge the chain of life,
When I am no more.
3.
With snow on my head
And fire in my heart,
Staunchly I bear the years
Upon my shoulders.
My child-like hand
Guides me along
And I ask no one
For favors.
4.
On the blunt whetstone of time
I have grown ripe, now I’m
Laughing child-like to myself
The laughter of a little elf.
5.
All kinds of little flowers grow,
Dainty lilies, white as snow,
Roses red as fire-flame,
Lungworts blue as ocean foam.
Daffodils of golden-brown
Twined together like a crown.
Daisies white and purple blue—
All bedecked with springtime dew.
All kinds bloom from every stem,
The Lord created all of them.
6.
I'm lonely in this God’s world,
My heart is homesick and heavy,
It flickers in life’s hollowness,
In its own fire it burns.
My song, my only stay,
A star on my lonely way,
I bathe my verse in agony
And thank you, Lord Almighty.
7.
God, your eye guards the world,
From you no matter is withheld,
You have happiness for all.
The smallest worm beneath a stone,
Too, does not remain alone.
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