Noach Peniel

FAREWELL TEARS

About Bereza, my native city

I remember your landscape, and over my cheek are farewell tears

They spilled out on your distant tombs, there abroad

Of your burnt trunk, the winds and tempests dispersed

The ashes on the fields and over a silent, betrayed community,

With look ups of fright, walking over a watered blood path,

With steps of alive skeletons, frozen of pain.

Your atmosphere trembles for the last lament

And clouds of smoke rise in front of a powdered man.

I was truncated of life, you are no longer there, you are not over the earth,

But inside me you are alive, your panorama in me is reflected

Your happiness sings in me and your sadness consumes me,

From deep of my heart, I murmur for you a farewell greeting

You rested on the plains of Polesia, your limits were signaled

The silent waters of the Yasolda flowed, inside your fields

And rafts weighed anchor where of and where from

From the green forest toward other horizons

And a white route, divided your short back streets,

The houses soaked by the shades of chestnut trees

Each house was surrounded by an orchard

And to the side of the fence plants and flowers grew

In your villages Russian and Pole peasants

Plowed their fields, their flocks pastured on the grassland

And their wild and noisy children,

Chased on the fields of the other side of the monastery

But your hearings hardly listened their voices

As if the cross of the roof of the church didn't run off

As if the light of the other side of the curtain exclaimed His Name

And from the sky, a supreme and hidden light sprinkled you

It is Jewish divinity, she is reflected as

A grandmother, as the smiles of a boy's face

As the studious pupil's bread

As the boots of the water carrier that there inhabits

As the morning darkness in spring festivity

A day of Av 9 from the green of the cemetery

The sadness that soaks the fields in the month of Elul

And the Saturday glorious say, the cold, and the transparent and white snow

For the first time in your look is illuminated with the light of East

And the dawn of the East brought me astonishment and consternation

Surroundings somber green were lilacs flourished,

Then sealed and hidden in the deep of my heart

I will remember the willows near to my house, in the garden,

In the noisy storm, and in the calm of their height.

Flourished light blue cherry trees,

And their fruits filled the branches together with autumn pears

I will remember your springs on the grassland,

White islands where still hides the ash

Puddles that sinks under the snow

They are happy and they shine in front of the wind.

And slowly it descends, the river sinks on the fields,

And it ascends day by day a colorful carpet,

A wide green field, embroidery of light blue and white

I will still remember the happiness and also the suffering

My heart burned when I left for the first time;

As a perfume surrounded me the panorama, golden,

That will glow in my heart in all paths of my life

And when descending summer on the fields of mature cereals,

I liked to go for a walk day by day among high shafts

With a celestial sympathy winked me cereals,

And the grasshopper disappeared among the furrows

The abundant apples waited with their greenery

And then the fruit reddened and it gilded on its loaded branches

How good to climb to the apples tree

And to flail on the grass under the shade

With songs of happiness we will take a bath

In the waters of the Yasolda, next to it's greens banks,

We swam in the clear river, with brilliant waves,

We leaned back on a mirror of deep water

And during Sabbath afternoons

We went toward the railroad

We went away until arriving to the pine groves.

We returned when the sky in West was covered of flames

When the shades extended on water currents who sang.

Finally summer caresses with farewell love

Still heats summer sun from celestial skies

But sadness ascends, and from the fields observes

The autumnal sadness in the gardens, the withered flowers

Little by little clouds over the sky, it gets gray

The field darkens and from a cloud a sprinkle drips

Sadness and melancholy on the fields, loaded with sadness

Cloudy waters of the river, arrived autumn

And a sprinkle that doesn't cease, and continuous the cloudburst

Falling on puddles of mud sunk on sidewalks.

Lakes of rain water, cover gardens and grasslands,

And the willows beside house, fallen and tearful

The howl of the tempest shakes the trees

And until passes the anger, the houses in silence will groan

And covered with coats youths run

And a humid sharp cold penetrates the blood

After the first snow, the world is transformed in white

A white world, glowed in the horizon

The trees of the garden got dressed of party

And a fresh splendor whitens the grasslands

Suddenly, froze the waters of the river, and a bridge

Renovated crosses the field.

How good to run, to slip on the refined ice

To sink your eyes in autumnal transparent target,

And by the light of the sun, they shine for me as sapphires

The crystalline and transparent snow appears with its splendor

The earth is a single block, the powerful in her

Are affirmed, and the man is also nurtured

The voices of those that go for a walk in the garden mix with the happiness

And of a tree to other, the scream of the crow is listened.

A group of children throws balls of snow here,

And their laughs mixes with cracking of snow

It is good to navigate very far in a moon night

To fly in a sled which has more rails of snow

And they are linked in a clear night as chat of lovers, as laugh,

The young burning vibration, as a magic song

And during generations you harbored Jews,

Work people,

That during week make an effort in getting their bread;

Work and effort to see grow each son,

Because their parents take the heavy load of sustenance

From the sun begins to shine until hides in week days

In the month of " Tamuz " with heat, in month of " Cheshvan " with tempests,

In the month of " Tevet " with cold

Or in the month of flourished " Yyar ",

work, drag the yoke

They give their children daily a piece of bread

Stopped on the scaffold and in his hand the plumb line

Bent over in his humble work shop

Stuck in his business, selling and buying

Each father gives his boy with the fruit of his work

Parents that take the sustenance in their callous hands

For not waiting people's gift;

Because the mothers want the daily sustenance

And they work without pause to prepare the food

In week days they cover their body with deteriorated clothes

The powder of the shop and of the market fell on them

It is observed in all Street corners during working days

And even in their humble habitations the din is felt

But on Friday, when it descends on Saturday when twilight

A fine nobility invades each home, covers each corner;

And a splendor that is not of this world, in each look

Of the Jew seated next to his Sabbath table

I loved your Saturdays, brilliant and quiet

The flames of consecrated candles

The happiness and the pride of the soul with the morning prayers

And the sweet sadness of last Sabbath dinner

They even shine in me, your festivities there

The redemption songs in the nights of Pesach

The days of " Shavuot " invaded the greenery soul

The days of regret came closer with fear

The hurt soul waited the verdict

And the festivity of " Sucot " calmed, consoled, stimulated,

Waiting the arrival of the guests

The flames of heroism burned in the candles of " Chanuka "

And the giant shades of the past filled your hole

And in "Purim" festivity entered a contained happiness,

And with infantile happiness you forgot your efforts

In this climate became agitated hidden nostalgias,

On your floor a stairway with angels ascended

In calm hours, my hearing captures your wonderful songs

They embroidered your hole, a homeland and many nostalgias

The shine of a rosy twilight, with Venus in east

And lit in West a purple splendor

A moon that spreads its delicate splendor appears

Were discovered for me worlds, but far in time and space

And all my life is fruit of those nostalgias

I nurtured myself of your transparent sources, in the dawn of my days

I will take your image in it, deep of my being,

I won't forget them,

And with your light I will level the road

While the blood flows in me

From then on I went away of your limits,

My feet stepped the peaks and the deep abyss

Your grace disappeared in the noise of my lost days,

As if I didn't know your name of past times

But when the enemy lifts the axe with wickedness against you

Woke up my pity but I will see again all dear that contained

I see again for last time time your lost beauty

My eyes spilled farewell tears on the powder of the road

As they truncated you impure hands of an alive world

As your children were taken to the slaughterhouse by the light of the day

Their voices still rise in their last walk

in my hearings sound last screams in front of their tombs