To my wife
Sometime I’ll come into your dreams
Like an unexpected, unwanted guest.
Don’t leave me outside on the street –
Don’t bolt the doors against me.
I’ll enter on tip-toe. I’ll approach so gently
I’ll narrow my eyes to see you in the dark
And when gorged with gazing at you –
I’ll kiss you and then be gone.
Spring
Oh my spring, spring dressed in white
Still unlived, uncelebrated,
Only dreamt in murky visions,
Passing low over the poplars,
Never landing in your flight.
Oh my spring, spring dressed in white
I know you come with rain and whirlwind
Spouting fire with insurrection
To restore a thousand hopes
And wash out the bloody wounds.
How the birds will sing in cornfields,
They’ll swim in the open full of joy,
The people gladly set to work
And like brothers love each other.
Oh my spring, spring dressed in white,
Let me see you in first flight
My life’s been given in dead arcades
Let me only see your sun,
Then – die upon your barricades.
Last verse
The fight is hard and pitiless
The fight is epic, as they say.
I fell. Another takes my place –
Why single out a name?
After the firing squad – the worms.
Thus does the simple logic go.
But in the storm we’ll be with you,
My people, for we loved you so.
2 p.m. – 23.vii.1942
A Letter
Do you remember
the sea, the engines,
and the holds full of wet dark
and that great longing for the Philippines
and for the big stars over Famagusta?
Can you think of one sailor
who did not look thirstily into the distance
to where the breath of tropic winds
blew softly in the dusk?
Do you remember how, in us,
little by little
the last scraps of hope and faith in goodness
and in man
in the romantic
and in empty
dreams
grew cold?
Do you remember
how very quickly
we got caught in the trap of life?
When we came to our senses
it was too late.
We were trapped.
Like animals in a cage
our eyes shone
thirsty
searching
begging for mercy?
We were young,
we were so young!
And then...then
a sort of hatred
began to take hold of our hearts.
Like gangrene,
no, like leprosy
it spread,
destroying our souls,
knitting its cruel nets
of emptiness
and dark hopelessness,
creeping into our blood, howling menace,
and it was all so early, all so very early...
And there -
high in the sky
the wings of seagulls
still vibrated.
The sky still glittered
like mica
and still it was all
blue and boundless,
still sails sank slowly
over the horizon
every evening
and masts disappeared in the distance, but we had gone blind.
For me all this belongs to the past - it is unimportant.
But I shared with you the straw on the same plank bed,
and I feel I have to tell you
how hopeful and how optimistic I am now.
This is what stops me
from putting a hole
through
my head.
It changes
the bitterness in my heart
into a force
to fight
which is in full flight
today.
And it will bring us back to the Philippines,
and the big stars over Famagusta
and the joy
which has diminished in our hearts
and the love gone dead for the engines
for the vast blue of the sea
where the tropic breezes breathe.
It is night now.
The engines are singing
a song with a beat
suggesting warmth, faith.
If only you could know how I love life now!
And how I hate
all things
meaningless...
It all seems clear to me,
as clear as it is that the sun will rise tomorrow,
that with our heads weґll break the ice.
And that the sun on the dark horizon,
yes
our
bright
sun
will shine.
So let it single
my wings
like those of a small butterfly!
I will not curse
or complain,
because I know
we all have to die.
But to die
when the earth is shaking off
the poisonous mold,
when millions of people rise again,
that is a song,
yes, it is a song.