Inscription

Tell me
in what
do I carve
your name?

In the sky?
It’s too high.
Into the clouds?
They are too fleeting.

Into the tree
which one cuts down and burns?
Into the water
that washes everything away?

In the earth
that is trampled
and in which only
the dead lie?

Tell me
into what
do I carve
your name?

Into me

and into me
and deeper and deeper
into me.

Erich Fried, Austria (1921 – 1988)

Translation Germain Droogenbroodt – Stanley Barkan