I have always felt an affinity to the poetry of Rose Ausländer (her last name means foreigner in German) as well as to the poet. Her poetry evolved from tightly structured writing early on to more free flowing, ethereal words, not coincidentally perhaps after she developed a friendship with Paul Celan, one of my favorite poets of all time.  I am drawn to the ways she uses language, but I am also drawn to the person who owned but two suitcases (if that) for all of her life, and who had an intense, loving, perhaps even enmeshed connection to her mother, not unlike my own. (Today’s photographs of lines are meant to represent both: connection and parallels.)

I think I have written about her in this blog before, but here is a quick summary of her life – details in link below. Ausländer was born in Czernowitz in 1901 (now Ukraine) surrounded by the many languages of the many different nationalities all congregating in Bukowina. She came from a liberal Jewish household, studied literature and philosophy, survived being forced into the Ghetto and hiding during the Holocaust, and, after a stint in the US, chose to return to Germany and live there until her death in 1988.

She was by all reports a warm person with a sunny disposition and she became the voice of reconciliation in her last years of life in Germany, embracing even her enemies. Another thing I admire and feel drawn to: the ability to forgive.

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/auslander-rose

I chose two poems by her, one that expresses such bittersweet longing and mourning for her mother (Ausländer had a physical and emotional breakdown when hearing of her mother’s death that kept her ill for a year.)

 

The other poem is in response to her own request: I am speaking her words, as I hope will you.

That English translation, by the way, is really weak.

This is what the German actually says:

When I pass

the sun will continue to burn

 

the planets will

move according to their own laws

around a center 

unknown to anyone.

A sweet fragrance will emanate forever from

the lilac

white streaks of lightning radiate from the snow.

When I depart

from our oblivious earth

will you speak my words for me

for a short while?