wave rolling low.
I know not who has confused me,
or whose guilt I carry within,
but life is short, but life, my friend,
is a gift of glass that falls from the hand,
and death is long, like everything now,
and death is long, so long.
Ahead of it lies only water
and I am sorry a thousand times
that death must keep going on and on,
as though it weren’t the horizon.
And joy comes up to its waist
and sorrow is ankle-high.
And when I fall asleep it is
my own voice that I hear:
“a single candle in your hand,
beloved, hold it near.”
A single candle in her hand,
and downward it is turned,
as if both had raised their gaze
and passed without a word.
THIRD INTRODUCTION
A northern harp one last time
I shall take into my hands
and I’ll kiss farewell, farewell
to that blind old music.
How I used to love that tune,
that light in love with the dark.
And nothing will end with itself,
as you once said to me—
not with evil, poison or slander,
or a wound of the heart’s surrender,
not even death so young and tender
crossing above itself
two saplings in full bloom.
Dark is your storytelling,
yet it suddenly flares so bright
like a thousand colorful jewels
on a thousand slender hands,
and you see there’s no one here:
and you see there is only light.
So let us ask that we may too
stay on here like light.
That we may build a house from tears
for everything we had to do
and remember day and night.
Go now, may the Lord be with you,
and eat your bread, your earthly path—
which leads I know not where, but away.
And night draws in behind you
a meadow colorful and heavy.
And if fate deals out to us
its most unlucky star,
the wind bloweth wherever it wills,
and we live wherever we are.
1. KNIGHTS RIDE TO THE TOURNAMENT
And so there can be times,
and such a time can be
when you sense the earth’s heartbeat
and the smoke trailing thin—
the greenwood’s earthy heartbeat
and glory’s smoke so thin.
And the rest will hide away
behind a bush and a tree.
See the riders—how like the sun they are,
their horses made of the dark,
hoof and spear of a child’s hurt,
and their shields of mystery.
They hurry to meet their Pentecost,
their holy day, their feast,
where death will fall like one young rose
upon an open breast.
Do you remember that same rose
looking in at us?
We try to hide our eyes away,
yet still it’s looking in.
And the one who died young and loved,
and having loved himself,
walked and all that was ahead of him,
he touched and turned to living gold—
like Midas, only happier.
And now he is everywhere
and he is that very dream
that the hillside sees and horizon sees,
all those skies that are bright like him
and glorified like him.
Now life is overgrown,
the forests are too dense,
and speech is hard and it’s hard for me
to draw the veil of spirits and shades
away with my own hand.
Some wear black, some lilac,
some scarlet or heavenly blue,
but they ride and ride
and are looking
to where the rose is splashing awash
in
