A lament for Yiddish
David Sampson
A lament for Yiddish
I have lost my language.
All those years writing Latin verse and Greek
prose, what did that have to do with me?
Even Hebrew, the holy tongue, never touches the spot.
There is nothing to compare with kishkes and tokheses
Shmoks and sheytls, shnorers and ganefs
I want my language back, I want
the humour, I miss the sounds, I miss
the pathos, the sorrow and the joy.
Instead I got nostalgia for empire,
for the road to Mandalay
where the flyin-fishes play.
Where do they speak my language?
Stranger in a foreign land, where
can I be at ease? Where is home?
O stranger who passes by
My brain speaks English
But my heart is Yiddish.
David Sampson