*
Go, my cuckoo, go and sing
of a race dressed in black
whose song has come to silence;
of leaden fibers on the loom,
of a spindle ensnarled
and heddles entangled.
No longer does anyone spin flax and hemp
from yesterday’s yarns of song...
Oh my gold feathered cuckoo,
if only a song, if only the yellow
song of the blackbird, could find her,
this race scattered across the earth,
spinning top that no hand flung,
chosen people with no stars to implore...
oh, this tired, leaden heart,
baffled destiny,
withered branch, bearing marks of fangs.
(Translated by Anthony Molino)