I

She carried the lamp behind the water flags.
The midnight dawn gnaws through
the high chamber where Maria sleeps,
as I long for water and for flags.

I lie beside her. She rests with me. And none
of us are in this world jointly,
for nothing is here for elsewhere joined
where no desire tears one and the other asunder.

The wall becomes mirror of the army of stars.
The silence swells with fish. In the algae
grate the saline crystals of old sores.

Will I remain then in the watery grave
while the phantom ship incessantly sails on?
- But when Maria sighs, I take her hand.

1954

II

She-wolf and wolf in the wintery bed
when the howling of hearts shrinks to whispers:
from their fears twine names in the dark,
their wine tastes of the lamb's blood.

The nights are like those in parental times,
piled up on the house weigh the ruins of the temple;
and where through a shadow a light beam flashes
the illusion wastes into mildewy walls.

The dreamed baby hand sleeps within us;
his little pulse beats as in distress the chests
of birds that one sadly must set free.

Together, under the flag of the bed sheet,
as after a battle we lie on the bier.
Maria's hand rests on my graying hair.

Translated by Marian de Vooght