Birch Meadow / Birkenau - Daniel Kahn, the Painted Bird

Down by the brook where the birches are thin

The birds in the trees with their voices of tin

They sing even after the numbers begin

As though there were nothing above but the wind

A lamb I have been for the butcher to skin

A witness without to the darkness within

To every wail and to every grin

As all of the numbers go marching on in

A lamb with no shepherd, a brook with no sea

A story with no one to tell it but me

So here is the moral, for time is not long:

The world is a beast with a beautiful song

The day it is done and the twilight is nigh

The sun is replaced with a watchtower eye

And the clouds have been stained with an ominous dye

Like the butcher has wiped off his knife on the sky

The cold iron letters read «Arbeit macht frei»

And it may seem a lie but it’s hard to deny

If your work is to try to forget how to cry

And your freiheit is found in a pit full of lye

A lamb with no shepherd, a brook with no sea

A story with no one to tell it but thee

So tell me the moral, for time is not long

And the world is a beast with a beautiful song