Fuad Rifka Poems

At night here
The sun lights the Caucuses
At night in the Caucuses
The sun lights Alaska
...

Through the streambeds of darkness
through its cracks
a face always peers out,
...

He longs for home
And fears it.
He longs for travel
...

Across memory's stage
Faces pass by
Behind an iron curtain
They spin spider webs.
...

A spring night
A moon round with health
Beneath a gladsome rock,
a stream murmursAnd yet
...

The childhood that loved him:
in the riverbeds
The woman that loved him:
...

In the beginning were the elements
and there was love,
so they mingled.
...

Long ago
there was travel.
Provisions for the road were the rooster's crow
The birds of the twilight haze
...

In the darkness of valleys
the streams glimmer
In the darkness of roots
...

Du sagst:
»Ich vergeudete meinen Frühling,
die Ernte meines Sommers,
vergeudete meinen Herbst
und meinen Winter,
verstreute mein Leben
in jedem Tal.«
Du sagst:
»Ich werde mein Gesicht nehmen und gehen,
hoffend in fernen Bergen auf neuen Wind.«

Du gehst fort
in jedes Land,
in jede Schlucht.
Nachdem es zu spät ist,
siehst du alles,
weißt, daß die fernen Berge
fern bleiben,
und daß der Weg dahin
Brand ist und Rauch.
...