No, what you say
is not true at all.
Never like today
have I been drunk on life and celebration.
Like a child, I long to tumble
on meadows shining with joy,
and knock down the magpies
from the blue bell tower crosses.
I gave everything for people, for the land.
I wish I had it all again,
I’d burn with a renewed belief.
I wish that, when dusk arrived,
the lamplighter would light the moon too,
like a simple oil lamp in the dark.
I want to believe the stars
are nothing but mad dragonflies
burning with fire around the moon.
Those laments, like the wind’s howls
over church stones, awaken my sorrow—
but I don’t want to die, I don’t,
I don’t want to be seen as nothingness.
Like a child, I want to steal honey from the trees,
reach out my hands like fragile little dishes.
Why does death exist? Why is it born in my heart—
this thought, when I have a home?
I want to live, I want to live, I want to live—
through evil, through pain, through sorrow,
be it as a thief, be it as a miner,
let me remain in this human hell.
My soul blooms like an apple,
my eyes burn with blue flames.
What should I do? In this garden of humankind
I don’t want my voice to fade away!
And now I say no, not to my mother,
but to a stranger in the tavern:
“It’s nothing, I tripped, I slipped.
By tomorrow, everything will pass.”
