FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW
Together through the wintry woodland
All day we wandered without pause.
How come, then, that beside my footprints
I cannot see a print of yours?
Were not the trees just now repeating
Your songs of overwhelming charm?
And when your fingers lost their feeling,
Did not I warm them in my palm?
Did you not run behind a fir tree
And cry: «Give chase! I’m not afraid!»?
If you were not the other person,
Who was it heard my verse tirade?
Was it not you who laughed, grew angry,
Who said that I was in the wrong?
Was it not you saw my surrender
When your persuasion proved too strong?
Through virgin snow you strode beside me.
Where are your tracks? I do not know.
I walk alone. Thought flutters wildly
But leaves no footprint in the snow.
Zest for life, the quest for truth
Are a sign, they say, of youth.
Holy wrath is wont to cool
Shortly after leaving school.
Both the wish and will to fight
Vanish almost overnight.
On life’s road, they say, you’ll tire.
Lose all interest, retire
At a solemn, stately pace.
Blind to honour and disgrace,
Equal courtesies you’ll show
To a friend and to a foe…
If this prophecy be true,
There’s but one escape for you:
Choose a clifftop, say: «Goodbye!’’
Take a running jump—and die!
ON THE ROAD
I met a rider in the hills
Who bore himself with pride.
A cigarette clung to his lips,
A whip hung at his side.
Beside him with a sleeping child
A weary woman stepped
And so profusely she perspired
It seemed as if she wept.
I stood and watched them out of sight
And felt a burning shame,
For thirty years the equal right
Of women we proclaim!
Here lyric verse is not enough,
Let lines of wrath begin
So mountain folk need never blush
For any of their kin!