Memory
Quietly I want to thank my fate:
never shall I be completely without you.
As a pearl grows in an oyster,
so inside me your dewy essence
sweetly grows.
If finally one day I have forgotten you -
then will you be blood of my blood,
then will you and I be one -
it is in the power of the gods.
You Are My Purest Comfort
You are my purest comfort,
my most steadfast shelter,
you are the best I have,
for nothing hurts as much as you.
No, nothing hurts as you.
You ache like ice and fire,
you cut like steel my soul -
you are the best I have.
The Calm Steps Beyond
I listen, I hear life escaping
steadily faster now.
The calm steps beyond -
death, it is you.
Before you were far away -
I held you all too dear.
Now, when I no longer yearn,
now you are there.
Dear death, there is in your
essence something which comforts:
mildly, what you ask for
if one has grown up
or lost all of life!
Dear death, there is in your essence
something which purifies clearly:
that which is not with good or evil
you lay bare and naked.
Follow me and let me hold your hand,
it is deeply comforting.
You make what is beautiful
bearing and large,
you make the ugly small.
It is as if you wanted
something from me.
A present is certainly what
you want: a curious little key -
the little word yes.
Yes, Yes, I wanted to!
Yes, Yes, I want to!
I lay down my piety
before your feet -
so that life will go on.
Farewell
I would have woken you to a naked-ness
like a naked spring evening,
when the stars overflow and the Earth
burns beneath melting snow.
I would have seen you just once
sink into the darkness of creative chaos,
would have seen your eyes
like a wide-opened space
ready to be filled,
would have seen your hands
like blossoming flowers empty,
new, awaiting.
You leave,
and nothing of this have I given you.
I never reached,
where your soul lies bare.
You go,
and you take nothing of me with you
leaving me to my defeat.
I remember another farewell:
we were hurled from the crucible as one being,
and when we were parted,
we no longer knew what was I or you ...
But you - like a bowl of glass
you have left my hand,
so complete as only a dead thing
and so unchangeable,
with no memories other than light finger-marks
which are washed away in water.
I would have woken you
to a formlessness like a
formless flickering flame,
which at last finds its living shape,
its own ...
Defeat, oh defeat!
Now Is The Immense Time of Waiting
Now is the immense time of waiting
before leaves burst forth,
now trees tremble in their splitting glory,
the birches of purple, the asps of green
and the gold-red of wide streams -
the time of invisible powers,
when everything is naked bearing wombs -
souls pant heavily,
and the twilight hounds and tires
as immeasurable love-affairs.
Now creation crouches for the leap
it has yearned for
before it is disappointed,
when the forest is as green as possible
and the world is as complete as possible
and the trees and the people mumble
as if asleep: "We wanted more."
