(...)
“some day you will miss me”
my mother
had said
and it was true she was right
about that – but
what she hadn’t
realised was that i had
always missed her
even while she was alive and we
almost saw each other every week
what she hadn’t realised was
that the greatest
longing was the longing
for what we already possessed
that all longings
really
sprang from this one longing
which was
only slaked
in the moment of acquisition when
longing and longing became one
and that was life’s hardest task:
that what you have
and are had to be
reconquered over and over each day
and life’s greatest
paradox: that
what you were to conquer could only
be given to you
in the great moment
of acquisition when you had
precisely lost it again
and all other longings were only
lengthenings of
this one
longing – journeys out of the mind
towards the distant goals
on the horizon of
the fairytale where the clouds’ castles
hung so red
with gold in the
evening sun – so you could return home
again to what you were and are
and that was life’s greatest fairytale
to journey
to the world’s end
to gain the simple insight
that what you
searched for you
had already found that who you
wanted to be
you already were
that all the time you were yourself
who else should you otherwise have been? (...)
For the whole collection in translation, go to here
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