Speak the Kaddish: Mourning Has Broken

Grief is my foe, not the loss –

for in the Heart is nothing lost that is dear, and no one – no!

On this I will not bend.

Grief is my adversary – the loss, my battlefield.

Oh, sacred, poignant grief – gentle, brutal,

penetrating and seering, merciless and compassionate.

I will not submit.

                        

Everyone meets you alone; each on his, on her own terms

is met by you – but are you mocking me

or beckoning with a smile – all surreal, all so real.

A sharp pain and a dull, so blunt, which is worse…

I am tired from it, I sleep in fits, waking knowing –

the departed is still departed, however often I awake.

Alone I encounter you, gray, uncomforting and cruel;

alone on this field called Loss,

barely seeing through the mist,

though the sun be out and shining –

oh, what is this mist!

Is it the tears?

Are they mine, then let them be mine!

Are these my tears?

Then I will shed them and shed many,

I will not submit.

The scar you leave me

must not heal for me to be whole,

I will carry it, I will caress it,

and I will meet you with all my strength

and all my wrath and all my tears now,

on this field of battle.

I will embrace you, Grief,

and with my tears and Love’s faith,

I will prevail and overcome you and break you,

again and again as often as you like – until

I’ve consumed you, absorbed and digested you.

And I will speak the Kaddish and extol the Name,

and I will triumph.

Now Mourning has broken, now may it begin.

    

 (Lazarus Hospice, Berlin)

 (at Terezìn Concentration Camp, May 1992)