Not, not mine: it's somebody else's wound; I could never have borne it. So take the thing that happened, hide it, stick it in the ground; whisk the lamps away.

No, not under the vault of another sky, not under the shelter of other wings. I was with my people then, there where my people were doomed to be.

Forgive me, that I manage badly, Manage badly but live gloriously, That I leave traces of myself in my songs, That I appeared to you in waking dreams.

A choir of angels glorified the hour, the vault of heaven was dissolved in fire. "Father, why hast Thou forsaken me? Mother, I beg you, do not weep for me.

The word dropped like a stone on my still living breast. Confess: I was prepared, am somehow ready for the test.

Rising from the past, my shadow Is running in silence to meet me.

No foreign sky protected me, no stranger's wing shielded my face. I stand as witness to the common lot survivor of that time, that place.