Some poems

Hope and Other Bittersweet Memories

Bit of a warning!!!!
This was written for my history class--it deals with the Holocaust (a fictional but historically accurate/possible story of a victim), so if that is something that will be distressing to read I will not be insulted if you stop here.

it also has some Romanian, but I'm not a native speaker so my grammar and stuff may not be super accurate.

It's also a bit differently formatted here than it's supposed to be, but I couldn't figure out how to get it to work right so I just left it. I hope it still sounds good.

I can't remember dying.

Mamă shuts my door quietly

Too many days I wait silently,

Tată kisses my forehead and night begins

Watching the world recover.

I close my storybook, new tales of princesses

My feet lead me forward over brick.

and monsters swirl behind my tired eyes

Though the soles of my shoes brush new stone,

Noapte buna my darling, Mamă says.

I see them weathered as I remember.

I crawl to the side of my bed when Mamă leaves

I walk beside a woman and her children,

Counting the days to my birthday. Mamă says

Small shoes marking her daughter's footsteps

In 1945 I turn 10, and Tată said 10 is special.

Are much prettier than my best pair,

Tată says 10 is magic. Tată says that 10 is new.

But just about the same size. Just small

When morning comes, I wait to hear Mamă,

enough to be lost underfoot in a rush.

Bună dimineața copilul meu, She'll say,

Down the street, where there once was a gate

Good morning my child. And the sun will shine.

Where there once was the last barrier

But no, this morning the sun does not shine.

between my faith, and a world so cold,

A shadow at my door, mere man, but more monster.

There now stands a synagogue. A fragment of

A shout, a cry. and why must we leave?

Secret hope, brought into the light for all to see.

Mamă says please Anna, no questions. Just

My hands brush across lamp posts, following the path

Follow me, and bring the blanket your bunică made,

Of busy people and teenagers rushing home.

It may be cold. Tie your shoes before you go Anna.

The path I once walked for the last time.

I bend to tie my shoes, my very favorite pair,

The soul of this town has grown, has grown back.

Mamă says we must get onto a train. Mamă,

The colors here have changed, and but old stories linger

I've never been on a train! I pull her arm.

Hiding underneath new layers of paint, and within old

Mamă says it will be okay, but the train isn't

storefronts. I step over stones in the ground that hold

Like in the stories. I sleep again, the sun barely up.

Names clutched in hands. look at me. remember.

The train stops and we get out. In all the pushing

My town, my world. My silence is no longer forced.

Someone steps on my shoe, and it falls away, gone.

My memories may not live on, my words may be small,

I hold Mamă and Tată's hands, but Mamă and Tată

But my name, my people will never fade or be forgotten.

Leave. and I don't remember what happens next

Now everyone remembers how the stories went.

I can't remember the end of the story.

Based on:

Anna Veronika Bartok, Kovaszna, Romania (1935-1944)

(Yad Vashem Archive)