From Hannah's Poem Notebook

To My Mother 
(Nahalal 1940)
 
From where have you learned to wipe the tears,
To quietly bear the pain'
To hide in your heart the cry, the hurt,
The suffering and the complaint?:

Hear the wind!
Its open maw
Roars through hills and dale
See the ocean...
The giant rocks,
In anger and wrath it flails.
 
Nature all arush, agush.
Breaks out of each form and fence
From where is this quiet in your hearts
From where have you learned strength

To Die...
(Nahalal 1941)
 
To die… so young to die… no, no, not I.
I love the warm sunny skies,
Light, songs, shining eyes,
I want no war, no battle cry –
No, no…not I.
But if it must be that I live today
With blood and death on every hand,
Praised be He for the grace, I'll say
To live, if I should die this day…
Upon your soil, my home, my land

Walk to Caesarea
(Caesarea 1942)

God – may there be no end
To sea, to sand,
Water's splash,
Lightning's flash,
The prayer of man

At the Crossroads
(Caesarea 1942)

A voice called. I went.
I went, for it called.
I went, less I fall.
At the crossroads
I blocked both ears with white frost
And cried
For what I had lost.

Blessed Is The Match
(Serdice Yugoslavia May 1944)
 
Blessed   is the match consumed
in kindling flame.
Blessed   is the flame that burns
in the secret fastness of the hurts.
Blessed   is the heart with strength to stop
its beating for honor's sake.
Blessed   is the match consumed
in kindling flame.

One – Two - Three
(At the prison, Budapest 1944)
 
One – Two – Three . . .
eight feet long.
Two strides across, the rest is dark . .
Life hangs over me like a question mark.
One – Two - Three
maybe another week.
Or next month may still find me here,
But death, I feel, is very near.
I could have been
Twenty-three next July;
I gambled on what mattered most,
The dice were cast. I lost.

 

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