For people subjected to the ever tightening constriction of German orders, regulations and prohibitions, observation of nature changing with the coming of seasons might have at that time provided a small measure of comfort – as we see in Zusman Segalovitch’s poem that begins this section. Even the memory of summer by Grinberg of “Summer Mornings by the Sea”, or of “White Swan on Water by Vayland might have helped the reader preserve a link to more peaceful times. Or for some, awareness of changing seasons was a certainty that could be counted on in times of chaos. Nature provides a link to eternity as in Vayland’s “White Swan” and in Vogler’s “Two Birch Trees Beside the Road”. Segalovitch’s “Not Everyone Comes Here” seeks comfort and respite from suffering, fear and danger, in autumn’s golden orchards. Ber Horvitz in “The Gray Sky”, finds in the leaden heavens and in the flight of birds a metaphor for his own desperation to escape, to fly to a better place. And the white snow of “Winter”, inspires Peretz Opochinski to recall from a distance the childish joy of walking through a dreamland of snow intoxicated with its beauty.
Poems in this section include:
- Zusman Segalovitch: Like a Miracle
- Eliezer Grinberg: Summer mornings by the sea
- Ber Horvitz: Doctors
- Moishe Kaufman: Spring has come
- Shmuel Yacov Imber: The Grass is More Beautiful
- Joseph Rubenshteyn: Spring in Town
- Pesakh Vayland: White Swan
- Elkhonan Vogler: Two Birch Trees Beside The Road
- Nokhem: The River
- Nokhem Yud: The Young Tree
- Raizl Zhikhlinski: Rain
- Moishe Kaufman: Dusk
- Moishe Kaufman: The Worms Have Ruined
- Unknown: Nights
- Ber Horvitz: The Sky is Gray
- Simkha Shayevitch: Balad of the White Night
- Peretz Opochinsky: Winter
- Zusman Segalovitch: Not Everyone Comes Here