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Rain is lashing the mud, the fields lie lifeless.
They’re dragging crates full of corpses out of the camp again.
But I managed to get some sleep, and you know, Kola, in my dream,
I even thought things could be worse.
God knows, the sky above us opens like a hand,
like the warm hand of a girl. But what fabulous eyes
you need to see those other, mysterious spheres,
to be able to dream when you’re awake.
So let there be mud, rain mixed with gloom,
and like a pair of wanderers, let us escape to the magic
of poetry or dreams. Let’s talk about silly Hanka,
from Dorohusk somewhere — let’s talk about an ugly girl’s tears.
Pardon this poem. I had a girl once,
a tall, slender girl — I keep dreaming about her,
I watch our past life, in the half-light, like a movie–
I’m glad you can’t see the look on my face.
Well, Kola, it’s tough, life’s a tricky business,
made up of darkness, rain, uneasy dreams …
And our great love is so far away,
and the great war is so close, grinding to an end.
As the left hand forgets what the right hand is doing
so our dreams will drift apart,
but when you’re already there, think: Warsaw, Tadeusz …
For I’ll think: Hanka, Nikolai, Dorohusk . . .
-Tadeusz Borowski, 1943
Source: Borowski, Tadeusz. Here in our Auschwitz and Other Stories, translated by Madeline G. Levine. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021.
Guiding Questions:
1. Kola is the speaker’s confidant. How does the opening stanza capture the bleak reality of the speaker’s surroundings?
2. How does second stanza create a sense of hope to escape suffering and death? What opportunity might the “mysterious spheres” provide the
speaker?
3. Using nostalgic references, what does the speaker implore Kola to do?
4. How does poetry provide an escape from the camp in this poem?
5. In a powerful memory, the speaker provides the fading image of a “tall, slender girl.” How does the “half-light” lend to the mournful discrepancy
between the speaker’s past and present?
6. The speaker acknowledges that the “great war” – is ‘made up of darkness, rain, and uneasy dreams.” How does their “great love” contrast these
images, providing some hope for the future?
7. Why does speaker worry that the war’s coming ending will compromise his poetic intimacy with Kola? What does the speaker ask of Kola?