Rose Ausländer (May 11, 1901 – January 3, 1988), maiden name Rosalie Beatrice Scherzer, was a Jewish German- and English language poet.
She was born in Bucovina, and lived in the United States, Romania, and Germany.
AMAZEMENT II
Rose Auslander
Behind my cheerfulness
breathes the grief
Behind the grief
stands my amazement
beyond cheerfulness and grief
and beyond all
what was
what is and
what will be
===========
MY NIGHTINGALE
Rose Auslander
Once upon a time my mother was a doe.
The gold- brown eyes
the grace
stayed with her from the doe-time.
Here she was
half angel half human –
the middle was Mother.
When I asked her what she would have wanted to be
she said: a nightingale.
Now she is a nightingale.
Night after night I hear her
in the garden of my sleepless dream.
She is singing the Zion of the ancestors
she is singing the long-ago Austria
she is singing the mountains and beech
forests of Bukowina.
Cradle songs
my nightingale
sings to me night after night
in the garden of my sleepless dream.