If you somewhere in the deserted troubled night Stumbled and go on the brink - Don’t hide, don’t keep silent, shout to me until you are heard! - I shall hear your voice, recognize it! If you lie in the ripe rye with a bullet in your breast - Have patience: I hurry - and the feet don’t feel fatigue! We shall return there where the air as well as the grass heals, - Only don’t die, only stop bleeding! .. If a horse is under you, you race, ride quickly - The dun horse will find the way - There on the brink, where the lively springs always arise, - They will heal your wounds! Where are you - under lock and key or on the long way? On which are you now at crossroads and crossings? Maybe you are tired, depressed, got lost between three pine trees - And cannot find your way back? Here are such clean brooks under the snow - One doesn’t find, doesn’t contrive anything more beautiful! Here are flowers, shrubs, and trees - no one’s, If we want - they are ours. If you have difficulties going - to the knees in the mud And over pointed stones, barefoot through freezing water, Soaked with sweat, weather-beaten, full with smoke, singed by fire - Doesn’t matter how, - going, reaching slowly, come creeping along!
© Elisabeth Jelinek. Translation, 2018