The writing of a stranger's poem

Another kind of translation.

A writing of a stranger's poem.

A while ago, I read Mark Abley's fantastic Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages and in the chapter on Yiddish, he writes about some very powerful Yiddish songs which were written during WWII. One was a lullaby to a stranger's child, sung because the mother of the child had disappeared.

I wrote a poem -- a 'memory translation' -- an imaginary reconstruction of a text which I've never seen. And today, I've written it again.

LULLABY TO A STRANGER'S CHILD

shh

where

the window

where

mother

the forest

shh 

something broken

song

be born

hidden

like sleep

remember

a voice where

shh

mother

where dark 

the window

where

father

shh hidden

where

sleep

sleeps