Sometimes we are tied down by memories

Sometimes we are tied down by memories
and there are no scissors that could cut
through those tough threads.
Or ropes!

You see the bridge there by the House of Artists?
A few steps before that bridge
gendarmes shot a worker dead
who was walking in front of me.

I was only twenty at the time,
but whenever I pass the spot
the memory comes back to me.
It takes me by the hand and together we walk
to the little gate of the Jewish cemetery,
through which I had been running
from their rifles.

The years moved with unsure, tottering step
and I with them.
Years flying
till time stood still.