I can draw no boundary
Between myself and you.
But who are we, where from,
If of all these years
There remains only gossip,
And we’re no longer here?
18
It was winter.
Wind was blowing from the steppe.
And the infant was cold there in the grotto
On the slope of the hill.
He was warmed by the breathing of the ox.
Domestic animals
Stood about in the cave,
And a warm mist floated above the manger.
Shaking bed straw from their sheepskin capes
And grains of millet,
Shepherds on the cliff
Stood looking sleepily into the midnight distance.
Far off there was a snowy field and graveyard,
Fences, tombstones,
A shaft stuck in a snowdrift,
And the sky over the cemetery, full of stars.
And alongside them, unknown till then,
More bashful than an oil lamp
In a watchman’s window,
A star glittered on the way to Bethlehem.
It blazed like a haystack, quite apart
From heaven and God,
Like the gleam of arson,
Like a burning farm, a fire on a threshing floor.
It raised itself up like a flaming rick
Of straw and hay amidst
The entire universe,
Which took alarm at the sight of this new star.
A reddish glow spread out above it
And had a meaning,
And three stargazers
Hastened to the call of the unprecedented light.
After them came camels bearing gifts.
And harnessed asses, one smaller than the other,
Moved down the hillside with little steps.
And in a strange vision of the time to be,
All that came later rose up in the distance,
All the thoughts of the ages, the dreams, the worlds,
All the future galleries and museums,
All pranks of fairies, all tricks of sorcerers,
All the Christmas trees on earth, all children’s dreams.
All the flicker of gleaming candles, all the paper chains,
All the magnificence of gaudy tinsel …
… All the more fiercely the wind blew from the steppe …
… All the apples, all the golden balls.
Part of the pond was hidden by the tops of the alders,
But part of it was perfectly visible from there,
Through the nests of jackdaws and the treetops.
The shepherds could make out very well
How the asses and camels went past the dam.
“Let’s go with them to worship the miracle,”
They said, wrapping their leather coats around them.
Scuffling through the snow made them hot.
Across the bright clearing, like sheets of mica,
The tracks of bare feet led behind the hovel.
At these tracks, as at the flame of a candle end,
The sheepdogs growled in the light of the star.
The frosty night was like a fairy tale.
And from the heaped-up snowdrifts, all the while,
Someone invisibly slipped into their ranks.
The dogs trudged on, looking warily around,
And pressed to the herdsboy, and expected trouble.
Down the same road, over the same country,
Several angels walked in the thick of the crowd.
Bodilessness made them invisible,
But their tread left the imprints of their feet.
By the stone a throng of people crowded.
Daybreak. Cedar trunks outlined themselves.
“And who are you?” asked Mary.
“We’re of the tribe of shepherds and heaven’s envoys.
We’ve come to offer up praises to you both.”
“You can’t all go in together. Wait by the door.”
In the predawn murk, as gray as ash,
Drivers and shepherd boys stamped about,
The men on foot cursed the men on horseback,
At the hollowed log of the water trough
Camels bellowed, asses kicked.
Daybreak. Dawn was sweeping the last stars
Like specks of dust from the heavenly vault.
And only the Magi of that countless rabble
Would Mary allow through the opening in the rock.
He slept, all radiant, in the oaken manger,
Like a moonbeam in the wooden hollow,
Instead of a sheepskin coat, he had for warmth
The ox’s nostrils and the ass’s lips.
They stood in shadow, like the twilight of a barn,
Whispering, barely able to find words.
Suddenly, in the darkness, someone’s hand
Moved one of the Magi slightly to the left
Of the manger. He turned: from the threshold, like a guest,
The star of the Nativity looked in at the maiden.
19
You meant everything in my destiny.
Then came war, devastation,
And for a long, long time there was
No word of you, no trace.
And after many, many years
Your voice has stirred me up again.
All night I read your Testament,
As if I were reviving from a faint.
I want to go to people, into the crowd,
Into their morning animation.
I’m ready to smash everything to bits
And put everybody on their knees.
And I go running down the stairs,
As if I’m coming out for the first time
Onto these streets covered with snow
And these deserted sidewalks.
Everywhere waking up, lights, warmth,
They drink tea, hurry for the tram.
In the course of only a few minutes
The city’s altered beyond recognition.
