Polish Poetry in Siberian Exile

Supplications

From hunger,

From marches,

From rain,

From lice,

From strong wind that slashes your face,

From fire’s warmth-when at night they order you to leave it,

From marshlike taiga that you sink in up to your knees,

From torn-off shoe soles,

From stolen breadbag-Save us, Lord!

From tundra lying on its back facing the sky,

From nightmare of white nights,

From swarms of mosquitoes,

From sudden and unexpected night marches,

From leaden dawns to sooty dusks,

- Holy God!

- Holy Almighty!

Holy and Immortal, save us, oh Lord!

We the sinners,

We the tired,

We the ones given up to vast expanses,

We the ones cast out to be eaten alive by the frozen wastes,

We the ones deprived of humanity and legal rights,

Trampled like grass,

Hounded down and rounded up-

We the louse-infested beggars,

We the ones stupefied by hunger,

We the nameless multitude

Poisoned by wrongdoings,

We the filthy,

We the ragged,

We at times the ludicrous,

We the consoled,

We the sinners,

You Lord God we beg,

The Living and True,

The One and Indivisible,

- Holy God!

- Holy Almighty!

- Holy and Everlasting, have mercy on us!

Through the last,

posthumous

Wound of thy Son

through His Blood and Suffering

Amen - Amen - Amen (1)

From-
Lives Remembered:
Polish Poetry in Siberian Exile
A Survivor's Daughter's Commentary
Halina Ablamowicz
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~sarmatia/105/251ablam.html#1