Naliboki Forest 1942-44


Tall trees paint the infinite blue sky
with the seeping red of the weak,
whilst lower branches reach out to us to sweep
us in to protect. Nature beckons from the Ghetto, but lies.
One hell into another, longer nights but less sleep.

Eternal sleep for some, as bomb filled machines circle
above a vast sea of green, hunting,
firing death at scurrying life below.
Deeper. Faster. Darker. In we go. Further we run, the more we are seen,
forced to play this deadly game of hide and seek.

Cries of anguish near and far; death is all around
this paradoxical place of beauty.

Gold stars fade in the soil amongst the fallen leaves.
The spared few brave a naked white winter, huddle and forage for
fuels for all nature’s endurance; scarce like our squandered lives.
Keeping the forest alive, their hearts are defiant. And then

the high sun, years clouded by violence, suddenly bursts through.
The black lifts as we silently step back towards the pieces left of us.
Faster, faster, charging through these splintered acres of death.
We are finally victorious in spite of our tragedy.






My baby girl


Cocooned snug and warm, she lies deep inside
me, a need to stay there almost to hide
for forty long weeks to grow and mature,
is this my destiny to create and nurture?
My body has changed irreversibly so,
giving life to my child in order to grow.
My spine curves away, I can’t see my feet
and all my mouth craves is everything sweet.
My body is ready but never my head,
When her arrival commences, is the time that I dread.

Cocooned by myself and all preparations
I distance myself from my flapping relations.
Unable to grasp just what lies ahead,
I spend my whole days thinking of nothing instead
of my nearness to pain, how my life has now changed
for the better I’m told, though I feel quite estranged.
She’s on her way out. I panic. I’m scared,
but a strange feeling envelops me, I would not have dared
to admit to myself, first tears and now laughter, instant love that I feel as I meet my first daughter.