Father, pain was uncalled-for,
so were punitive needles, the gnashing
of teeth in life, cold seats,
phosphoric tumors and wounds
that spread like a lake at night.

What you wanted to hear from our lips
we would have said better without sobbing;
we would have found
your distant home, also, by just rising.

The light in the eternal window
behind which you wait up for us reading
the book of the born
was bright enough on the hilltop at night
so that we would have never lost our way
and reached the magnanimous circle for supper
as strictly punctual as death. No, Father,
pain was uncalled-for.

Translated by D. Sam Abrams