Borrowed Time

Harder days are coming.

The loan of borrowed time

will be due on the horizen.

Soon you must lace up your boots

and chase the hounds back to the marsh farms.

For the entrails of fish

have grown cold in the wind.

Dimly burns the light of lupines.

Your gaze makes out in fog:

the loan of borrowed time

will be due on the horizon.

There your loved one sinks in sand;

it rises up to her windblown hair,

it cuts her short,

it commands her to be silent,

it discovers she's mortal

and willing to leave you

after every embrace.

Don't look around.

Lace up your boots.

Chase back the hounds.

Throw the fish into the sea.

Put out the lupines!

Harder days are coming. 

Ingeborg Bachmann