House

Here stood a little house. Its upper part had beenDisassembled for firewood. Only the stone foundation'sBroken floor plan has remained. I often come hereIn the evenings to pause and rest. The skyAnd the little yard's green striplingsRise out of the ruins in their youthfulness,And the spans of the wide windows are inscribedWith such clarity. The collapsed beamThat resembles a column. A musty coldRadiates from the piles of garbage and stone rubbleThat has strewn the rooms, where once upon a timePeople had taken refuge. . . .Where they argued, reconciled, where in a sockBespattered money was squirrelled awayFor a rainy day; where in the stuffiness and dimnessSpouses embraced; where sick peopleSweated in the swelter; where people were bornAnd died out of view—everything nowRevealed to the passerby—oh, blessed is he,Whose free-wheeling footfalls step livelyOn these ashes, whose indifferent staffBangs against these abandoned walls!The halls of Ramses the Great,Or a laborer's anonymous hovel—For a wanderer they are one and the same: by the sameLittle tune of time is he becalmed;Whether rows of festive columns or gaping holesOf yesterday's doors—they lead the wanderer allThe same from one emptiness into another,Similar one. . . .

                                        Here is a staircase with a patternOf broken rails that recedes into the skyAnd, breaking off, the raised platformSeems to me a high podium.But the speaker is missing. And the evening starIs already blazing up in the sky,The conductress of proud contemplation. Yes, beautiful thou art, time. It is goodTo breathe in a part of your terrible expanse.Why bother to hide? The human heartIs playful, just like an infant on awakening,Whether it is war, or famine, or revoltThat inundate or shake the earth;Here, all times flutter like the sky—And mankind, with his unquenchable soulDives into the wished-for abyss.

As a bird in air, a fish in the ocean,As a slithering worm in the damp strata of earth,As a salamander in the flame—so mankindIn time. The half-savage nomad, accordingTo the phases of the moon, the outlines of constellations,Is already striving to measure this abyssAnd in awkward cursives recordsThe events, like islands on the map. . . .But the son replaces the man. Cities, kingdoms,Laws, essential truths—all transient. For mankind,To demolish or to build—equal pleasure:He had invented history—he rejoices!And with horror, and with secret lustiness,The madman observes how, between the pastAnd what is still to come, like a clear liquid,Slipping through his fingers—without interruption,Time trickles on. And the heart palpitates,Like a featherlight flag on the ship's mast,Between remembrance and hope—This memory of what is to come. . . .

                                        And so—The shuffling of steps. An old hunchbacked womanWith a large sack. With a wrinkled hand she stripsThe strands of jute from the walls, tears awayThe shingles. I approach silentlyAnd help her, and in good conscienceWe work together for the benefit of time. It grows dark.A green moon rises from behind the wall,And its tepid light pours forth, like a spout,Over the tiles of the collapsed brick oven.

1919–1920