Don’t let me fall
As a stone falls upon the hard ground.
And don’t let my hands become dry
As the twigs of a tree
When the wind beats down the last leaves.
And when the storm raises dust from the earth
With anger and howling,
Don’t let me become the last fly
Trembling terrified on a windowpane.
Don’t let me fall.
I have asked for so much,
But as a blade of your grass in a distant wild field
Lets drop a seed in the lap of the earth
And dies away,
Sow in me your living breath,
As you sow a seed in the earth.

Kadya Molodowsky (1894-1975) was one of the most widely recognized Yiddish poets of the 20^th century and was a distinguished female writer in a field dominated by men. The Russian-born writer’s work includes poetry and literature within her popular subjects of working class Jewish women, Yiddishism and Zionism.

“Don’t let me fall,” reminds me of what of children to the father or mother when they are walking along the edge of a low wall or climbing a tree.  In this poem the writer is not asking to be protected from the sorrows of life but to be immersed into the field of life. She does not want to be a stone but a grass seed which will, in turn, give life and become swallowed up by it.