David Vogel

My horses climb slowly
on the way up the mountain
night has settled black
within us and everything.

My wagon creaks heavily for a moment
as if loaded with thousands of dead.

I will send a quiet tune
far off
on the waves of night.

My horses listen and climb slowly.
...

On autumn nights
an unseen leaf falls in the forests
lies still on the ground.

In rivers
a fish jumps out of the water
and a wet knock
echoes in darkness.

In the black distance
the gallops of vanishing
horses, unseen, scatter.

All these
the tired traveler hears
and a shiver passes through his flesh.
...

Days were great as lakes
And clear
For we were children.

We sat a long time on their banks
And played,
Or went down to swim
In the fresh water.

And sometimes we wept
In our mother's apron,
For life was filling us
Like jugs of wine.
...

Now I have forgotten all
The cities of my youth,
And you in one of them.

Through puddles of rainwater
You still dance for me, barefoot,
Though you must be dead.

How I rushed galloping
Out of my distant childhood
To reach the white palace of age
That is huge and empty.

I can't see back
To the start of my journey,
Or back to you,
Or myself as I was.

The path of days
From a distance
Continues to move
From nowhere to nowhere,
Without me.
...

Through the forests
night passes, a silent echo
like a pale blue thread.

When the universe falls asleep
an old man will wake in the blackness
and listen to the galloping of all his days.

On a snow mountain that never was
again for a moment two horsemen meet
and turn without saying a word
each to his own way.

Night swiftly swallows up
two black horses.
...