Facing

I look into a gleaming crystal mirror, and there I see an orphaned, trembling child instead of myself. He grins wickedly, he pukes, he laughs and laughs. He stumbles, ashamed of himself, as if he had been wounded in a million shapes, and mocks - most of the time holding up a crooked mirror to himself. 

I feel my Enkidu-cheeks curiously inward, and with my fine executioner's blade, like a miniature sword, I cut the thorny carpet of my stubble. For all I see is the wounded one within, and the unplated fallibility. - Like the eye of the true pearl in the valley of shells, it loosens, and from the void of the deeps it secretly emerges. In its throat like a snow-white marble on the tamed surface of the seas. Foolish wanderer? Perhaps! The meaning should be confessed responsibly, so that we may be equal in the curved mirror to the accelerating changes of our lives. 

Each man sinks back, like a treasure-scraper Into the whirlpool of Being unnoticed, - only Morality can bear witness, if it be witness. Our hearts, our eyes, our thinking brains feel suspected, exposed, if we can no longer be our pure and honest selves! 

Because I must wonder and be surprised at life's constant progress. Of enchanting magic-eyes, where else can the drops of light have time? My fleeting existence of my own free will I have long since despised, My open, open-hearted soul I can offer only to him who accepts my childish self; Who accepts my brokenness. 

First miracles, daily spells, make me easy. I do not flit to and fro on the wavelets of Being. Choosing paths that are passable, it would be good to surely rise above devil-spasm lethargy. To taste sparkling drops of peace in welcome hearts!