I know you are alive. Otherwise
what sense would there be in the
shadow and light
of faraway cold stars, reflections
of a crystal world? The black earth
seems to blaze with dew, the woods
rise up darkly above the horizon
as if it were the sea's blue depths,
and my blood pulses as if its beat
answered
the beat of the waves of all the seas
in the universe,
so close to me and yet so far,
pulsing with your blood.
I feel you are here, I know you are.
Dachau, 1945
Friends
All of my friends,
SOBs,
knew life in the damp
of KZs.
All of my friends,
dopes,
didn't shield their eyes
at the post.
All of my friends,
asses,
now lie in their graves
under grasses.
All of my friends,
madmen.
Write the ditty, hold the pity.
Nothing more then.
If you have died, then remember:
I will come to you. What use have I
for these shapes that shimmer and
fade
like a river reflected in the sun--
an unfamiliar smile or pain or just trees
that lightly lay their leaves upon
the wind, or
the soaked earth, dead as a face
in the moon's green light ... I hear it,
I hear it, you're calling me, I feel it
in the wind
that flows past my window as if
it were you stroking my face
with your hair, your delicate hand,
pronouncing my name in a whisper ...
If you have died, know this: I will come.
Fairy Tale for Children
We will recount to the children
on long familial evenings
tales of prison cellars, of interrogation,
of camps and of chimneys.
We will tell them of the suitcases,
of transports, their gold and their
jewels.
The techniques of theft and murder
are what children will learn in their
schools.
Our words will pass down generations,
they will awaken evil and vice.
The children will build gas chambers,
they will murder people inside.
By Tadeusz Borowski