“SHE CROSSED MY PAPER BRIDGE TODAY 

(YES, THE ONE I CROSS INTO HAPPINESS)”

A site-specific multilingual (Yiddish and English) piece, painted on the wall that separates Other Music Academy and the former Thüringer Jugendarrestanstalt (Thuringia's youth detention center).

Created in the frame of YSW 2026

KADYA MOLODOVSKY: MY PAPER BRIDGE

For Dovid Bergelson

She crossed my paper bridge today (yes,
the one I cross into happiness)
a woman some sixty or so years old,
with bare feet, bitten by the cold.

We met each other and stayed there a while, just so.
I, just because I had nowhere else to go -
and she spoke as if to me and herself, not of news,
but of bread, of wood, of shoes.

My paper bridge, I built it - it's true -
when not just the sky, but my eyes turned blue,
and the sun turned into a golden wheel
along a path that led to my heels.

I kept thinking about a house and a bed
and golden days and starburst nights,
kept thinking about a husband and child
brown summers' shades, and green springs' light.

I kept thinking about a road and a letter,
a wave-laden sea and a ship that shone,
kept thinking about the songs of the train
and night-blue sailors from parts unknown.

But I didn't think of shoes for this woman sixty years old
and today she and I stood, chatting here, just so,
she about shoes, since her bones were bitten cold
and I, just because I had nowhere else to go.

(Translated by A.Z. Foreman)