Forced Labor

My Son!

I don't know anymore how to write you words full of love.
I cannot write them anymore, neither gentle nor warm.
My pained heart, it withered away,
Later, it perhaps will heal when I silently take you in arm.

Now look:
my hands are the same ones that once from death
tore you away at your sickest moment.
And like wings sheltered you from all afflictions.
Look my son – today is against you my hands work!

On my hands I carried you in the dark of night,
with them I dried your tears,
I rocked you in dreams, sunny as a fairy tale,
And on your forehead I made the protective sign of the cross.

And now – dear God, release me from the dreadful worry!
The fear, terrible, without bounds, shakes me like madness
When I follow my hands, black and agile
I think, perhaps...my son! – death is being fed with these hands.

How should I call you with words of love, alas!
When my own hands hold my heart in contempt?
To tear one’s heart out and one’s hands – that would be so easy,
For they are foreign to me and cause me pain.