The end of days
the threshold of evenings
still it is not night
still the birds take flight
still the trees stretch out.
Soon it blows cooler,
the night and the dream.
~
And no record
of those days
tangled into one another
devoured by flames
that burned us:
The wounds of happiness
Become stigmas, not scars.
There would be no record,
if your account
had not been imparted —
poetic language
is a place, not a refuge.
~
I love the earth,
as if traveling
to a foreign place
and not otherwise.
So life spins me
quietly on its thread
into unknown designs.
Until suddenly,
like a journey's farewell —
the great silence cuts the thread.
_______________________
What Remains
The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt
TRANSLATED BY SAMANTHA ROSE HILL
Liveright, 2025
