Richard Berengarten
DARKENING
(36)
明 夷
From Changing
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fire beneath the earth
Meditation at Majdanek
Here not just bodies were
destroyed. Here even souls
were scattered so deep
into waste-pits they
could never re-emerge. So
very small they had been
shrivelled as to be almost
nothing, then pulped more
and then dispersed.
I could not take a pebble
from this place for it would
weigh so heavy in my
pocket as to burn right in
and through my flesh. This
dust is ash of powdered
souls. Memory, mother
of poems, shrinks away
to scream not mourn.
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crow caws at dusk light sinks under the earth
1. Time of deliverance
Time of deliverance
is not yet come. Still we
are oppressed by the
hugeness of high
ways stretching out
before our histories
ever began, and
puniness of our paths,
their slight span
across light, by
comparison, and
then yet another
equally unthinkable
vastness coming after
and without us. Our
task is not hopeless
nonetheless. We shall
hide our lights. Wait.
_____________________________________________________________
brilliance injured waiting
2. Under occupation
To save himself and others, he
veiled his words in cunning and
actions in such simplicity
that all thought him mad.
He treated foes and friends alike.
Took care to show everyone
one regular, bland, inane,
smiling face. Avoided lickspittles.
Trusted nobody, not even
those he loved. Never wrote
anything down. Remembered
everything. Moved light, with
few belongings. Stayed calm,
expressionless, silent whenever
possible. If questioned, he
replied, grinning, in riddles. By
then, thought stupid, he kept his
light burning steady. Inward.
_____________________________________________________________
under black light brilliance concealed
3. Child survivor’s testimony
I’m alive because in
the middle of the shooting
my father said, Go.
He let go my hand
and pushed my back
like this and said Go,
in an ordinary way
as if he was telling me
what to do, as usual.
Go, he said. It
didn’t feel special. He
didn’t say Run or
Go quick, or Hurry.
But he turned his face
away to my mother.
I walked away slowly.
Nobody noticed. That’s
why I’m alive.
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gentle in the face of dark strong in the jaws of death
4. Red Cross Hospital, Belsen,
after liberation, 1945
The madness is over
but we’re still alive, said
the emaciated jeweller
whose forefathers had
set diamonds for Bohemian
kings and queens. Why,
he said, tell me why
have I been spared? Rain
pelted down days,
muddying everything.
Typhus struck. An Irish
nurse fell in love with
a brave Canadian captain.
An English doctor caught
the typhus and died. The
jeweller got to Toronto.
Married. Had children. Taught
Yiddish. Died 1988.
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surviving evil some emerged into light
5. ‘To write a poem
after Auschwitz is barbaric’
I shall find words, my
own, after, despite and because
of this. And speak of it.
Your call, in words, to
silence, misconstrues what
poems are, do, are for.
To call out love and justice,
born of the heart’s oldest and
simplest imperatives – hope,
compassion, courage, truth,
and defiance of death-makers.
Whatever your intent, your
words invite barbarism
to root in nothing-saying.
Failure is not of or in
language, but small trust
and short vision. Our task lives
in words. Not outwith them.
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from depths of dark to confront and conquer evil
6. Tikkun, Majdanek
Our task, to restore
the fallen. Nothing else or
less. How many shrivel
and perish each time
creatures are slaughtered,
when not mere bodies
are reduced to ash
but spirits pulverised for
ever. A spirit destroyed
does not come back.
Dark powers of such death-
holes spread, infect
breath. Our job, to clean
air, protect unkempt wild
hidden spaces twined
in forest light, where
nest singing birds that
chorus like angels.
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when there’s no light תיקן only dark, what then
Copyright © Richard Berengarten 2015
Richard Berengarten is a European poet who writes in English and lives in Cambridge. Born in London in 1943 into a family of musicians, he has lived in Greece, Italy, the UK, the USA and former Yugoslavia, and has travelled widely in other countries. He has published more than 20 books and his poetry has been translated into more than 90 languages. His latest book, Notness: Sonnets, was published in March 2015 by Shearsman Books, which has also brought out new editions of several of his earlier titles, originally published under the name Richard Burns. The poem here, and another which will appear in the next issue of Molly Bloom, are taken from Changing, a book-length poem composed between 1984 and 2014, whose structure is based on the I Ching.