Little Ruth, by Yehuda Amichai

Sometimes I remember you, little Ruth,

We were separated in our distant childhood and they burned you in the camps.

If you were alive now, you would be a woman of sixty-five,

A woman on the verge of old age. At twenty you were burned

And I don't know what happened to you in your short life

Since we separated. What did you achieve, what insignia

Did they put on your shoulders, your sleeves, your

Brave soul, what shining stars

Did they pin on you, what decorations for valor, what

Medals for love hung around your neck,

What peace upon you, peace unto you.

And what happened to the unused years of your life?

Are they still packed away in pretty bundles,

Were they added to my life? Did you turn me

Into your bank of love like the banks in Switzerland

Where assets are preserved even after their owners are dead?

Will I leave all this to my children

Whom you never saw?

You gave your life to me, like a wine dealer

Who remains sober himself.

You sober in death, lucid in the dark

For me, drunk on life, wallowing in my forgetfulness.

Now and then, I remember you in times

Unbelievable. And in places not made for memory

But for the transient, the passing that does not remain.

As in an airport, when the arriving travelers

Stand tired at the revolving conveyor belt

That brings their suitcases and packages,

And they identify theirs with cries of joy

As at a resurrection and go out into their lives;

And there is one suitcase that returns and disappears again

And returns again, ever so slowly, in the empty hall,

Again and again it passes.

This is how your quiet figure passes by me,

This is how I remember you until

The conveyor belt stands still. And they stood still. Amen

from TheVintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry

Translated from the Hebrew by Benjamin Harshav and Barbara Harshav