In her memory I tried to translate a poem of hers to Hebrew and to English and kept finding it much more difficult than other poems in other languages until I realized that her poem has to be in Yiddish because it is about writing in Yiddish.  Here’s what I came up with:

A word

The words wait

until they cannot wait

and reveal a tear

uttered in the silence of night,

a plea.

Lord God, hear what these words say

hours hence,

years hence,

as if the soul would speak

in a nocturnal language

to be heard, understood.

A word should be like a kiss

given alone.

Then it brings morning

Sheltered from sun –

May the word to the morning

bequeath a poem.