To Time

 Listen, Time,
 I love you so dearly.
 Do you understand?
 Stop for a moment, won't you?
 I have something to say—do you have time?
 Why are you always in such a rush?
 Why do you run like that?
 How vast is your belly?
 How much do you swallow in it?
 Tell me, won't you!
 Sitting quietly, with a little smile
 I worship you,
 I remain still, with wonder in my eyes
 watching you race by!
  
 Time says, foolish girl!
 If you truly love me,
 keep your goal ahead,
 take the right path,
 and run as fast as you can!
 Why do you lurk like that,
 in season and out,
 stopping and staying put?
  
 Listen, Time,
 I see you, all my life long,
 only running terribly fast,
 weariness never stops you!
 Won't you teach me how you do it?
 Take me with you! I'll come along,
 I'll run swiftly beside you,
 pain won't be able to touch me—
 it will be wonderful!
 How much you carry away
 when the time comes!
 Bind the wrong moments the same way!
 You never look back,
 you leave everything behind in torment!
  
 Tell me this,
 all that you carry as you run,
 where do you keep it all?
 How big is that world,
 can you tell me just a little?
 How fast must I run backward
 to touch my lost childhood?
 Turning back, can I in an instant
 touch that lost happiness?
 The day I board a time machine,
 that day you'll see how I
 make you dance,
 fill you with joy as I wish!
 So much happiness has vanished at your signal!
 Relying on you, alas,
 even bliss has fled!
 Why are you so spiteful?
 What good does all that do?
  
 With a little laugh, sitting halfway, Time says,
 Have I only taken joy with me?
 Haven't I taken some sorrow?
 How much pain I've faded,
 smearing it on myself!
 All the wrong I've done,
 you seem to remember.
 Where do you keep the good?
 In exile on some distant island?
  
 That's really true!
 How many wounds of pain have healed
 dissolving in your flow!
 How much weeping has vanished
 in the depths of your flute!
 With what gesture
 do you keep flowing,
 whether destruction comes—
 or creation!
 I see you hardly
 care at all!
  
 Time runs out, measured by time—
 such a fool,
 life runs out measured by pain.
 When this happens, you don't think for a moment,
 you measure pain by giving punishment!
 You don't know
 how the day passes then!
 Life walks, death runs!
  
 Time says,
 Oh dear!
 When I've passed you call me back,
 before that you sleep wonderfully,
 you sleep at the wrong time,
 when the time comes you'll wake at last—there'll be no sleep!
 What's wrong with that?
  
 Time, you—
 you make hair white,
 you make skin loose,
 you make bones brittle,
 you make sight dim...
 Snatching away words, Time says,
 Is this all you see?
 How an embryo
 becomes human, do you think of that?
  
 You make emptiness full,
 fullness you make empty!
 Your tricks and cleverness
 leave me blessed with wonder!
 Every day you murder the world's lights
 silently...
 Snatching my words again, Time says,
 Do you keep count
 of how many lights blaze up even as they die,
 how many lights dress the world,
 how light's sparks dance and sway—
 at my command!
  
 Stop now,
 I surrender!
 In neglect, forgetting you
 for several lifetimes
 I'm paying interest!
 If I were to speak of you
 night would pass, morning would come—
 there'd be no end.
 So I stop here,
 with a little smile.
 One day I'll surely drift away
 in your very current!
 Having finished the lessons of the known world
 to an unknown land.
 Before that, I'll live fully,
 as long as you remain beside me.