What is far?
In the following poem, the mother tries to explain to her son what “far” means.Read the poem carefully and try to answer the questions:
Click the red brush and highlight the sentences that describe the meaning of “far”, outside the ghetto.
Click the yellow brush and highlight the sentence that describe the meaning of “far”, inside the ghetto.
A conversation with a child \ Vladislav Schlengel
Nineteen hundred and forty two
A mother and her son, a workshop, house
The child’s face is blue
The mothers hair is white as milk,
“Tell me, mother,” the little one asks, “what does far mean….”
Far, my boy, is somewhere in the mountains,
Beyond the forests, beyond the brooks…
Far are the railways…
And voyages in the endless sea.
Far are the mountains, red as fire…
And ships in the purple horizon
And the morning breeze, oh so light,
Far are the golden islands
Far is the fresh green grass
And the soft dry sand
But how to explain to a child
What far means
When he doesn’t know what rivers are
And never has he seen a green mountain
In his memory… unlike his mother's… no pictures are deeply engraved.
How then shall she explain to the child
What far means.
Far – my son – answers the mother
And a tear lingers on her face
Far, my child, is from our block
to the tebens workshops.
|
