i never saw another butterfly.

"The Butterfly"

The last, the very last,
So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow.
Perhaps if the sun's tears would sing
against a white stone. . . .

Such, such a yellow
Is carried lightly 'way up high.
It went away I'm sure because it wished to
kiss the world good-bye.

For seven weeks I've lived in here,
Penned up inside this ghetto.
But I have found what I love here.
The dandelions call to me
And the white chestnut branches in the court.
Only I never saw another butterfly.

That butterfly was the last one.
Butterflies don't live in here,
in the ghetto.

Pavel Friedman 4.6.1942

This poem is found in the book I Never Saw Another Butterfly, Children's Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp, 1942-1944 Edited by Hana Volavkova; revised and expanded by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. New York: Schocken Books, Inc. 1993.

This poem was written by Pavel Freidmann who was born on January 7, 1921, in Prague and deported to Terezin on April 26, 1942. He died in Aushchwitz on September 29, 1944.

*****
i just read this book last week and cannot get it off of my mind! i picked it up off of the table at rich&marlene's house after i tucked naomi into bed and sat in silence on their couch, trying to imagine the sorrow and intense suffering that these children went through...and, yet they still saw beauty. they still chose beauty. i can't even imagine! how does one choose beauty in such darkness? i admire those who can.

not only are the poems intensely emotional, the artwork is just as powerful. i called my husband on the phone (close to midnight on a weeknight) and started reading some of these poems to him. i was so enveloped in the intensity of the art, that he gently had to remind me that it probably wasn't the best decision for me (or us) to be reading right before bed. oh, how he knows me. i am quite sensitive. well, super sensitive. and, yes he's right. not only was i crying, i couldn't stop thinking about these children. and, as i was crying...rich walks in the door. which, seems to happen often when i'm at their house. last time, i decided to watch the film "life is beautiful" right before they got home. again, rich walks into be weeping. well, i wear my heart on my sleeve and i'm proud that i do.

what a beautiful book...