TEREZIN Poems

[Guest guest]

Might we just once listen to the children....

 

The poems may be read all together at the webpage Jerry has generously provided.

 

 

SONGS OF CHILDREN

 

This collection of nine poems written by children while interned at Terezin

Concentration Camp were selected as the lyrics for a cantata composed by Robert

Convery in memory of all children who perished in the Holocaust. It was first

performed in NYC, April of 1991.

 

http://www.nonduality.com/terezin.htm

 

 

 

3. ON A SUNNY EVENING

 

On a purple, sun-shot evening

Under wide-flowering chestnut trees

Upon the threshold full of dust

Yesterday, today, the days are all like these.

 

Trees flower forth in beauty,

Lovely too their very wood all gnarled and old

That I am half afraid to peer

Into their crowns of green and gold.

 

The sun has made a veil of gold

So lovely that my body aches.

Above, the heavens shriek with blue

Convinced I've smiled by some mistake.

The world's abloom and seems to smile.

I want to fly but where, how high?

If in barbed wire, things can bloom

Why couldn't I? I will not die!

 

Anonymous 1944

 

 

 

 

8. BIRDSONG

 

 

He doesn't know the world at all

Who stays in his nest and doesn't go out.

He doesn't know what birds know best

Nor what I want to sing about,

That the world is full of loveliness.

 

When dewdrops sparkle in the grass

And earth's aflood with morning light,

A blackbird sings upon a bush

To greet the dawning after night.

Then I know how fine it is to live.

 

Hey, try to open up your heart

To beauty; go to the woods someday

And weave a wreath of memory there.

Then if the tears obscure your way

You'll know how wonderful it is

To be alive.

 

Anonymous 1941