PARTISAN REVIEW
Wahin, ihr?
-
Nirgend hin.
-
Von wem davon?–
Von allen.
Ihr fragt, wie lange sind sie schon beisammen?
Seit kurzem.
-
Und wann werden sie sich trennen?
-Bald.
So scheint die Liebe Liebenden ein Halt.
9
THE LOVERS
See those cranes in their wide sweep!
See the clouds given to be at their side
Traveling with them already when they left
One life to fly into another life.
At the same height and with the same speed
Both seem merely at each other's side.
That the crane may share with the cloud
The beautiful sky through which they briefly fly
That neither may linger here longer
And neither see but the swinging
Of the other in the wind which both feel
Now lying next to each other in flight.
If only they not perish and stay with each other
The wind may lead them into nothingness
They can be driven from each place
Where rain threatens and shots ring out
Nothing can touch either of them.
Thus under the sun's and the moon's little varying orbs
They fly on together lost and belonging to each other.
Where to, you?
-
Nowhere. Away from whom?
-
From all.
You ask how long are they together?
A short time. And when will they leave each other?
Thus seem the lovers to draw strength from love.
181
[Translated from the German by Inge
S.
Marcuse]
The image of liberation
is
in
the flight of the cranes, through
their beautiful sky, with the clouds which accompany them: sky and
clouds belong to them - without mastery and domination. The
image is in their ability to flee the spaces where they are threatened:
the rain and the rifle shots. They are safe as long as they remain
themselves, entirely with each other. The image is a vanishing one:
the wind can take them into nothingness - they would still
be
safe:
they fly from one life into another life. Time itself matters no longer:
9. Gedichte,
vol. II (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1960), p. 210. Erich Kahler
and Theodor W. Adorno have revealed the significance of this poem. See
Adorno,
Aesthetische Theorie
(Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1970), p. 123.
