As The 100th Anniversary Of The First Year Of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars) Continues ... Some Remembrances-Poet’s Corner-German Jewish Poets   

GOLDFELD

(Killed during the war: no details available;no more is known about him, not even his first name.)

TO A MISSING FRIEND

You have no grave, no cross … but you did die.

Maybe in some dark thicket your bones lie

Or you were sunk in swamp in deep of night,

Or Cossacks cruelly robbed you of the light.

And when it was and where and how …and why

I know not: death in forest does not cry.

You are a skull now white-bleached by the rain

Round which the weasel lightly leaves its train.

You are the ploughed earth on which horses stand

You are the grain that once did crown the land

You are the bread the farmer once did eat

You are the strength when peace returns to greet.

Translated by Peter Appelbaum