DANGERS WITHOUT A HAND

Chasing a hundred dangers. I open my ears permanently. I open the honest scales of truth-telling words to sound only when my stubborn muteness permits. The harmony of eternal mountain silence might richly embrace me, if I did not dip my melancholy head in the thick of petty daily cares.

I bury my true pearls on the other's grave, anxious and trembling. Must I fall down in the midst of Existence, or can I stay afloat a little while longer, like a boat-barge wandering aimlessly among the waves? In myself, as in a comfortable prison cell, I am imprisoned in degrees of pessimistic self-pity waiting to be spoken to. If at least the superfluous, unmanageable burdens of my cares multiply, I have someone to share them with!

Forgetful friends weave a web around me, While I measure with timed precision the Time so fertile. Life's joyous arches I should gleefully gloat, Like a mad scarecrow, who laughs at the crowds Of cawing, pitying crows - By myself fleeing like a frightened, frightened animal From my cares.

Being is not so merciful, merciful, merciful; now more than a lifetime of man's life, the tiny spark in my soul is a more persistent ember than the Heuréka will: my childish soul, still fickle, still keeps active ideas. While misty streams of mist descend the steeps of mountain-backed hills, I am torn by the fear of doubts, like a conscious uncertainty. Beneath my feet the relentless drudgery of the brigade burns, if I have no strength left in the will to break the rock!

I will believe my own word only when I have grown up in myself, when my cherished humanism is matched by moral rectitude! When will my despairing soul, abandoned by faith, awake again?! Haunted by the summer's Africa-haze, my spasmodic slug-members haunt, while my sweaty boyish musings melt into it!