Draft of a Reparations Agreement
Like you, I am hungry for a world that is ordered and in place. In this poem, written in the sickening shadow of the Jewish Holocaust, Dan Pagis reworks the biblical text of Ezekiel 37:1-14 and its vision of restoration, and drafts his own version of a reparations agreement.
All right, gentlemen who cry blue murder as always,
nagging miracle-makers,
quiet!
Everything will be returned to its place,
paragraph after paragraph.
The scream back into the throat.
The gold teeth back to the gums.
The terror.
The smoke back to the tin chimney and further on and inside
back to the hollow of the bones,
and already you will be covered with skin and sinews and you will live,
look, you will have your lives back,
sit in the living room, read the evening paper.
Here you are. Nothing is too late.
As to the yellow star: immediately it will be torn from your chest
and will emigrate
to the sky.
- Dan Pagis (1930 – 1986)
