Nelly Sachs, "If I Only Knew"
IF I ONLY KNEW
If I only knew
where you put that last look.
Was it on a stone,
a blind stone,
which had taken in so many last looks
that they fell blindly on its blindness?
Or was it on a shoeful of earth?
Already black
with so many partings,
so many killings?
Or was it on your last road
saying farewell to you from all the other roads
you once walked?
A puddle? A glitter of metal?
The buckle of your enemy?
Some other spirit-augury
of the world to come?
Or did this earth which lets
no one depart without its love
send you the sign
of a bird in the air,
reminding your soul
that it flinched just so
in its charred and tortured body?
NELLY SACHS
Translated from the German by Eavan Boland
This entry was originally posted at http://the-grynne.dreamwidth.org/967489.html and has
comments.
If I only knew
where you put that last look.
Was it on a stone,
a blind stone,
which had taken in so many last looks
that they fell blindly on its blindness?
Or was it on a shoeful of earth?
Already black
with so many partings,
so many killings?
Or was it on your last road
saying farewell to you from all the other roads
you once walked?
A puddle? A glitter of metal?
The buckle of your enemy?
Some other spirit-augury
of the world to come?
Or did this earth which lets
no one depart without its love
send you the sign
of a bird in the air,
reminding your soul
that it flinched just so
in its charred and tortured body?
NELLY SACHS
Translated from the German by Eavan Boland
This entry was originally posted at http://the-grynne.dreamwidth.org/967489.html and has
comments.