To see yourself in others
your condition
your need
your weaknesses
your humanity:
To be social in your heart
you others, all social in th.e head!
--And the heart is not an impulse of the moment
but lasting
The heart is not a business cycle.
translation by Muriel Rukeyser and Leif Sjoberg
Birth is simple:
You become you
Death is simple:
You are no longer you
It might have been the other way around
As in a mirror world:
Death could have borne you
And life extinguished you
--One way is as good as the other--
And perhaps it is that way:
It is from Death that you have emerged
And life is slowly effacing you.
translaation by W. H. Auden