Come here. And watch my death, and watch this everlasting Oh,
The final wave that's passing, quivering through my pelt,
And know my foot was clawed and taking flight and weak,
And don't ask if I am a hare, a squirrel or a mouse.
As if it made a difference. To you I'm either good or evil;
You call yourself the arbitrary ruler, the one who makes up laws,
Who measures them according to his limbs, his hat and coat
And slights and shirks the stranger from within his city walls.
The human beings you have killed: dumb you're lying at their graves:
Through suffering they were turned to saints, and fixed with a golden mark.
You wear dead mothers' skin and hang them round your children's necks,
Hand out toys whose source is bloody tortured heads.
Because living we are but cattle, game; we fall: bait, meat and grub -
There's not a drop of dew, no grain of wheat you'd grant wholeheartedly.
You fall asleep with heaven and hell above; when we drop dead, we're carrion,
But you are stricken with the grief you can no longer murder us.
Once I gave away some images of me, which you would pray to avidly,
Until you recognised the human god, who ceased to be an animal god,
And then exterminated all my young and locked my springs in stone
And named that Highest Theorem which was determined by your greed.
You have your hope and pride, the hereafter, as well as woe have wages,
Which, in your wish to be untouchable, have fled into your soul;
Whereas I endure a thousandfold, in feathery shirt, in scaly dress,
And am the carpet when you weep, on which your sorrow kneels.
(from Gertrud Kolmar Gedichte, Suhrkamp Verlag, 1983.
Translations by Nicola Caroli)