The Legend Of The Clocks (Translation) Poem by Erhard Hans Josef Lang

Oh those clocks, those!
It is as if the ore were alive
and ringing like the crying of a man!
Thus said a teenager who was drinking beer.
And the alert keeper of the pub
knew something to say about it: -
In them there is flesh and blood.
A certain madman founded them once,
a man who arrived from over the mountains,
a sad fellow, who only drank pure water,
who only nibbled dry bread.
Since he repented for sins, took to suffering.
'Conscience, ' he exclaimed, 'brought me here;
I came to found clocks;
the handicraft trust had been looking for a foundery blacksmith.'
He got the work,
arranged for a shop, for the moulds.
Until late at night he wrestled in his shop.
And clocks he did found.
He founded many clocks - bad ones, all not ticking.
What could have been lacking, only heaven knew.
He melted the clocks - again to be founding mute ones.
Deep pain came to burn in his eyes.
His mouth was heard babbling strange things:
'No sound of clocks will be carrying up to heaven,
to where the Father is,
unless you give the weightiest of sacrifice; '
thus spoke the Master in the night, verily.'

The man melted his pieces of metal ore;
there, in front of the shop,
his lovely-haired daughter was playing,
a golden child, her father's only treasure on earth.
And when his dear one's laughter rang out,
it gave the man a jolt, as if hit by lightning,
that went into his soul
and paralyzed it by the loading of sin.
In pain he shouted:
'I can't do this! I can't do this! '
The silent clocks to the melting oven he took,
made new ones founded.
A fire, like mad burnt in his eyes.
The clanking of the bronze didn't come alive,
no, it just didn't.
Facing the Holy Virgin the man was,
praying fervently,
staying up all night, until morning.
Had left speaking loudly in delirium:
'Oh mother, with the clock clinking,
I shall not go down to a hell of trouble,
but, enveloped by heaven,
with its sin washed away,
my soul may ring.'

The man melted his pieces of ore;
at the door of the shop sat the lovely-haired daughter,
a golden child, her father's only treasure on earth.

Like snakes of fire the oven glowed.
The father turned his eyes to the child,
hurt, love exhausted his mind.
Like in a dream the hapless man was walking.
Pulled onto his lap his daughter and kissed her,
covered her eyes -
threw her into the molten bronze.
That one devoured the dear one,
hizzing.
Heaven only knows, how in that way,
that day the ore began to be alive.
You may hear how it is ticking.
By nightfall that man was a crazy man.

by Finnish poet Uuno Kailas (1901-1933) ,
transl. by Erhard Lang

note: in the year 1978, in the holy city of Rishikesh, India,
I vowed by myself never again to wear
a time-piece on my body; a vow I kept until now.