Dear Mother, Dear Mother

^{translated from the Yiddish by Daniel Kraft}

Dear mother, dear mother, I saw you from afar today,
you stood with your siddur and prayed for all of us
across these distances, your prayer was borne across the seas,
and like Noah’s blue dove your prayer brought me a leaf …

I spread it on my heart and wrote my poem on it
of my solitude, of my sadness by dawn and night;
not much remains of my unlived life,
in the flood of people I am but a single tear …

I’d write and write, but probably you’d weep
if I told everything to you about my sorrow in these quiet nights.
Across the seas and distances, my poem comes to you.
It will kiss your old siddur, and weave itself into your prayer …

Ellis Island, November 1938