Reconciliation

A big star will fall into my lap…

We want to wake the night,

Pray in the tongues

That are shaped like harps.

We want to reconcile with night—

So much of God overflows.

Our hearts are children,

They would like to rest, weary-sweet.

And our lips want to kiss,

What do you fear?

Does my heart not verge on yours—

Your blood colors my cheeks red.

We want to reconcile with night,

When we embrace we do not die.

A big star will fall into my lap.

As the title suggests, this poem by Else Lasker-Schüler describes the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur. The purpose of this Jewish holiday is to atone for sins and receive the forgiveness of God; Jews spend the day praying, fasting, and devoting themselves to spiritual requirements. The holiday begins, as all Jewish calendar days do, in the evening. These religious elements are symbolized in Lasker-Schüler’s poem. “We…wake the night,” beginning festivities in the evening, “pray in tongues…like harps,” an allusion to Hebrew prayers, and “reconcile” ourselves because of bountiful forgiveness from God: “so much of God overflows.” This day of purification gives us childlike innocence, for “our hearts are children.” Reconciliation brings love and eternal life: hearts touch, lips want to kiss, and blood flows in common veins; this love conquers death, because “when we embrace we do not die.” The spirit of Yom Kippur makes for a paradise of love and everlasting life.

As beautiful as this message is, there is also a hint of sadness in the poem. The first and last lines are the same: “A big star will fall in my lap.” This line symbolizes the desire to achieve the goal of the paradise of love described in the poem. However, the line is in the future tense—the star will fall, but it has not yet; the speaker has yet to experience this love, and can only hope for it. Moreover, because the fantastical images of the falling star enclose the poem on both sides, it is as if Else Lasker-Schüler draws an imaginary circle around the fantastical space of her poem, cutting it off from the outside world, inviting the reader to enter into a realm of imagination but not reality. By delineating the space of the poem in this way, Lasker-Schüler also marks it as temporary; it is as if the events had a beginning and an end within one single day—the day of Yom Kippur. The fantastical, temporary, and unfulfilled nature of the poem gives it its sense of sadness. Perhaps this sorrow is why, when Franz Marc illustrated this poem with a woodcut, Lasker-Schüler wrote him this line: “Why did you do the drawing of ‘Reconciliation’? Are you as painfully bereft as I am, with no path ahead, nothing but chasms?”