Foamy sky

The moon sways on a foamy sky,

I am amazed the I live.

An overzealous death searches this age

and those it discovers are all so very pale.

At times the year looks around and shrieks,

looks around and then fades away.

What an autumn cowers behind me again

and what a winter, made dull by pain.

The forest bled and in the spinning

time blood flowed from every hour.

Large and looming numbers were

scribbled by the wind onto the snow.

I lived to see that and this,

the air feels heavy to me.

A war sound-filled silence hugs me

as before my nativity.

I stop here at the foot of a tree,

its crown swaying angrily.

A branch reaches down- to grab my neck?

I'm not a coward, nor am I weak,

just tired. I listen. And the frightened

branch explores my hair.

To forget would be best, but I have

never forgotten anything yet.

Foam pours over the moon and the poison

draws a dark green line on the horizon.

I roll myself a cigarette

slowly, carefully. I live.

June 8, 1940.

(Translated by Gina Gönczi, 2004)