"I know"

"Art can bring us consolation as individuals but it is powerless before reality" -Romain Rolland to Stefan Zweig.

My translation of "Ich weiss" by Else Lasker-Schueler

I know, that I shall die very soon
All the trees glare at it
After the sought-for summer kiss.

My dreams will grow sallow -
I never versed such a gloomy end road
In those books of my rhymes.

You bring me a flower to compliment me -
I loved this flower to its very germs.
Yet I know, that I shall die very soon.

My Ode flows into the streams of God -
I lay switfly my foot
On the alley that leads to my eternal home.

written in Jerusalem, 1943