The Evening Rests On My Brow
The evening rests on my brow.
Man, I still haven't heard you murmur
or heard your heart roar —
and yet is not your heart
Earth's deepest shell?
Listening for the ring of your joy.
I learned next to your fear and listened closely.
But your heart is dead and Earth forgotten.
Oh, how I imagined that tone —
the evening presses it coolly to my brow.
I Am Sad
Your kisses darken on my mouth —
you no longer love me.
But how you once came —
blue for paradise.
On your ecstatic fountain
my heart danced.
Now I must paint it,
like the ladies who redden
the withered rose of their loins.
Our half-closed eyes
are like dying heavens.
The moon grows ancient.
And the night no longer watches.
You barely remember me —
where then shall I take my heart?
Farewell
But you never came with the evening —
I sat in a cape of stars.
When I heard someone knocking,
it was my own heart.
Now it hangs on every door post,
even yours —
among ferns a burnt-out fire-rose
in garland brown.
For you I stained heaven blackberry
with my own heart's blood.
But you never came with the evening —
I stood in golden shoes.
Prayer
In every country I seek a city
with an angel standing at the gate.
I carry broken on my shoulder
his great heavy wing,
and in my forehead the seal of his star.
And endlessly I roam the night
bringing love to this world,
that every heart may blossom blue.
All my wearying life I have watched,
darkly breathing, cloaked in God.
Oh God, pull your coat tighter!
I know I'm the lees in the goblet,
and when the last man pours out the world
You'll not let me slip through your might again —
a new globe of earth will encompass me.
_________________
E L S E L A S K E R - S C H U L E R
translated from the German by Janine Canan
Star In My Forehead
Holy Cow! Press
2000
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/lasker-schueler-else
