I put on my Mosaic horns, a pointed beard,
my goat-hoof feet—my nose, eyes, hair and ears
are just right—and walk the streets of the old ghetto.
In May under the giant lilac and blooming chestnut trees
I am the only dirty word in the Lithuanian language.
I taxi to the death camp and to the forest
where only the birds are gay, freight trains still screech,
scream and stop. I have origins here, not roots,
origins among the ashes of shoemakers
and scholars, below the roots of these Christmas trees,
and below the pits filled with charred splinters of bone
covered with fathoms of concrete. But I am the devil,
I know in the city someone wears the good gold watch
given to him by a mother to save her infant daughter
thrown in a sewer. Someone still tells time by that watch,
I think it is the town clock.
Perhaps Lithuanian that has three words for soul
needs more words for murder—murder as bread:
“Please pass the murder and butter” gets you to:
“The wine you are drinking is my blood,
the murder you are eating is my body.”
Who planted the lilac and chestnut trees?
Whose woods are these? I think I know.
I do my little devil dance,
my goat hooves click on the stone streets.
Das Lied von der Erde
ist Murder, Murder, Murder.