not even later.
Mothers and Fathers,
take pity on me.
I fear it will not pay to raise me:
I shall fall victim to the mower’s scythe.
No one can find me useful now: I am too young,
and tomorrow will be too late.
I only have one dress,
worn thin and faded,
but it will last an eternity
even before God, perhaps.
I only have this whispy hair
(that always remained the same)
yet once was someone’s dearest love.
Now he has nothing that he loves.
Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming
from the start,I don’t even know what songswould please you. I have given up tryingto recognize you in the surging wave ofthe next moment. All the immenseimages in me — the far-off, deeply-feltlandscape, cities, towers, and bridges, andunsuspected turns in the path,and those powerful lands that were oncepulsing with the life of the gods–all rise…
(but how tiny) still one lastfarmhouse of feeling. Can you see it?Exposed on the cliffs of the heart. Stonegroundunder your hands. Even here, though,something can bloom; on a silent cliff-edgean unknowing plant blooms, singing, into the air.But the one who knows? Ah, he began to knowand is quiet now, exposed on the cliffs of the…
His giant heartbeat is diverted in usinto little pulses. And his giant griefis, like his giant jubilation, far toogreat for us. And so we tear ourselves awayfrom him time after time, remaining onlymouths. But unexepectedly and secretlythe giant heartbeat enters our being,so that we scream —-,and are transformed in being and in countenance.Translated by Albert…
sea-wind of the night:you come for no one;if someone should wake,he must be preparedhow to survive you.Timeless sea breezes,that for aeons haveblown ancient rocks,you are purest spacecoming from afar…Oh, how a fruit-bearingfig tree feels your cominghigh up in the moonlight.Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming
that you swung with me into the leaves?How near I was to the exquisite fruits. But not-stayingis the essence of this motion. Only the nearness, onlytoward the forever-too-high, all at once the possiblenearness. Vicinities, thenfrom an irresistibly swung-up-to place-already, once again, lost-the new sight, the outlook.And now: the commanded returnback and across and into equilbrium’s…
that fence in the world,for the fire makes a circle of light for everyoneand then no one outside learns of you.But the darkness pulls in everything-shapes and fires, animals and myself,how easily it gathers them! –powers and people-and it is possible a great presence is moving near me.I have faith in nights.
