Lori Laitman — "The Seed of Dream" (2004). Poems by Abraham Sutzkever
Magdalena Wór, mezzo-soprano
Igor Zubkovsky, cello
Martin Labazevitch, piano
The Russian Chamber Art Society (RCAS) concert on December 6, 2024.
La Maison Française, Washington, DC
‘The Seed of Dream’ was commissioned by Music of Remembrance and had its premiere performance on May 9, 2005 at MOR’s Holocaust Remembrance concert at Benaroya Hall, Seattle, WA.
1. “I Lie In This Coffin”
2. “A Load of Shoes”
3. “To My Son”
4. “Beneath the Whiteness of Your Stars”
5. “No Sad Songs, Please”
I Lie In This Coffin
Vilna Ghetto, August 30, 1941; translated by C.K. Williams
"I Lie in this Coffin” is based on Sutzkever’s own experience of hiding from the Germans in a
coffin.
I lie in this coffin
the way I would lie in a suit made of wood,
a bark tossed on treacherous waves,
a cradle,
an ark.
From here, where all flesh is taken to eternity,
I call to you, sister,
and you in your distance still hear me.
Something,
Something stirs,
Something stirs in my coffin,
a presence;
you’re here:
I know you by the stars in your eyes,
your light,
your breath,
your tear.
This is the order of things,
and the plot:
today here,
tomorrow not.
But now, in my coffin,
my suit made of wood,
my speech lifts,
my speech sings.
A Load of Shoes
Vilna Ghetto, January 1, 1943; translated by C.K. Williams
“A Load of Shoes” was written…after Sutzkever glimpses his mother’s shoes a year after her
death.
The cartwheels rush, quivering,
What is their burden?
Shoes, shivering.
The cart is like a great hall:
the shoes crushed together as though at a ball.
A wedding?
A party?
Have I gone blind?
Who have these shoes left behind?
The heels clatter with a fearsome din,
transported from Vilna to Berlin.
I should be still,
my tongue is like meat,
but the truth, shoes,
Where are your feet?
The feet from these boots with buttons outside,
or these, with no body, or these with no bride?
Where is the child who fit in these?
Is the maiden barefoot who bought these?
Slippers and pumps,
look, there are my mother’s:
her Sabbath pair, in with the others.
The heels clatter with a fearsome din,
transported from Vilna to Berlin.
To My Child
Vilna Ghetto, January 18, 1943; translated by C.K. Williams
“To My Child” was written after the death of Sutzkever’s murdered infant son.
Because of hunger
or because of great love
your mother will bear witness…
I wanted to swallow you, child,
when I felt your tiny body,
cool in my hands
like a glass of warm tea.
Neither stranger were you, nor guest.
On our earth, one births only oneself;
one links oneself into rings
and the rings into chains.
Child, the word for you would be love;
but without words,
you are love:
the seed of dream,
unbidden third,
who from the limits of the world
swept two of us
into consummate pleasure.
How can you shut your eyes,
leaving me here
in the dark world of snow
you’ve shrugged off?
You never even had your own cradle
to learn the dances of the stars.
The shameful sun,
who never shone on you,
should shatter like glass.
Your faith burned away in the drop of poison,
you drank down as simply as milk.
I wanted to swallow you child,
to taste the future
waiting for me.
Maybe you will blossom again in my veins.
I’m not worthy of you, though,
I can’t be your grave.
I leave you to the summoning snow,
this first respite.
You’ll descend now like a splinter of dusk
into the stillness,
bringing greetings from me
to the slim shoots under the cold.
I wanted to swallow you child.
Beneath the Whiteness of Your Stars
Vilna Ghetto, May 22, 1943; translated by Leonard Wolf
Beneath the whiteness of your stars,
Stretch out toward me your white hand;
All my words have turned to tears –
They long to rest within your hand.
See, their brilliant light goes darker
In my eyes, grown cellar dim.
And I lack a quiet corner
From which to send them back again.
Yet, O Lord,
all my desire –
To leave you with my welth of tears.
In me, there burns an urgent fire,
And in the fire, there burn my days.
Rest, in every hole and cellar
Weeps, as might a murd’rer.
I run the rooftops even higher,
And I search –
where are you?
Past stairs and courtyards I go running,
chased by howling enemies.
I hang, at last, a broken bowstring,
And I sing,
And I sing to you like this:
Beneath the whiteness of your stars,
Stretch out toward me your white hand;
All my words have turned to tears –
They long to rest within your hand.
No Sad Songs, Please
Narocz forests, February 5, 1944; translated by C.K. Williams
No sad songs, please:
Sad songs just tease
At sorrow.
Words, too, betray,
And names, forever,
And tomorrow.
Look out at the snow:
In mem’ry’s art
Is unexpected
Radiance, and in
The speeches of the heart,
You yourself are
Resurrected.
Stretch your hands out
To that whiteness:
In its cold and burning
Veins
You’ll feel returning
The redeeming life
It contains.
No sad songs, please,
No sad songs, please,
No sad songs.
