Translated from the German by Edward Snow
I’m like a flag surrounded by distances.
I can sense the coming winds, and have to live them,
while things down below don’t stir yet:
the doors still close softly, and the chimneys hold silence;
the windows don’t tremble yet, the dust lies calm.
Then all at once the squalls arrive and I’m embroiled like the sea.
And I spread myself out and plunge deep inside myself
and cast myself off and am entirely alone
in the great storm.
