Night Over Birkenau
Night again. Again the grim sky closes
circling like a vulture over the dead silence.
Like a crouching beast over the camp
the moon sets, pale as a corpse.
And like a shield abandoned in battle,
blue Orion- lost among the stars.
The transports growl in darkness
and the eyes of the crematorium blaze.
It's steamy, stifling. Sleep is a stone.
Breath rattles in my throat.
This lead foot crushing my chest
is the silence of three million dead.
Night, night without end. No dawn comes.
My eyes are poisoned from sleep.
Like God's judgment on the corpse of the earth,
fog descends over Birkenau.
Tadeusz Borowski
(Trans: Tadeusz Pióro)
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