Change Yourself To Wine Poem by gershon hepner

If drinking is too bitter, change yourself to wine;
if eating is too salty, change yourself to chips;
if loving is too painful, change yourself. Don’t pine,
but think of wine and chips and dare to kiss my lips.

Dare to kiss my lips, and drink the magic wine
that proves that I am yours and you are also mine.
Burn with me the flame to keep our love alight,
not flickering when dawn extinguishes the night.

Come be the power rounding in a magic ring
your senses; if you feel that no one knows your name,
remember all the pleasure that I used to bring,
and flow like flashing waters to where I’m aflame.

Dare to kiss my lips, and drink the magic wine
that proves that I am yours and you are also mine.
Burn with me the flame to keep our love alight,
not flickering when dawn extinguishes the night.

Inspired by the end of Sonnet XXIX of Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Sonnets to Orpheus, ” which have been put to music by Peter Lieberson and are performed on a CD by his late wife, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, accompanied by Peter Serkin. On 10/12/09 I added a chorus to the poem so that it may be sung as a song.

Geh in der Verwandlung aus und ein.
Was ist deine leidenste Erfahrung?
Ist der Trinen bitter, Werde Wein.

Sei in dieser Nacht aus Übermass
Zauberkraft am Kreuzweg deiner Sinne,
ihrer seltsamen Begegnung Sinn.

Und wenn dich das Irdische vergass,
zu der stillen Erde sag: Ich rinne.
Zud em rasche Wasser sprich: Ich bin.

Stephen Mitchen has translated these lines thus:

Move through transformations out and in.
What is the deepest loss that you have suffered?
If drinking is bitter, change yourself to wine.
In this immeasurable darkness, be the power
that rounds your senses in their magic ring,
the sense of their mysterious encounter.
And if the earthly no longer knows your name,
whisper to the silent earth: I’m flowing.
To the flashing water say: I am.



9/22/06,10/12/09