A Poem by Nelly Sachs

And everywhere
the human in the sun
throwing the black bloodletting, guilt
onto the sand—
and only in sleep
the hiding place with no tears
with the blazing arrow of homesickness
flying from the skin’s quiver—

Here, though,
just letters
that scratch the eye
but already long ago became
useless wisdom teeth,
remains of an age gone numb.

But now
the weather-cherub
ties
the four-winds scarf
not to pick strawberries
in the forests of speech
but rather
to blow the trumpet one way, then another
in the darkness

for there’s no refuge
to be found
in the flying dust
and only the windscarf
a moveable crown
signals, still flickering,
blazoned with restless stars
the course of the world—

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Excerpted from Flight and Metamorphosis (Flucht und Verwandlung) by Nelly Sachs, translated by Joshua Weiner, to be published in 2021 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Translation copyright © 2020 by Joshua Weiner. All rights reserved.