In all its glory summer is returning
Although we’d thought that we must say goodbye.
Compressed into the shorter days, it’s burning.
The sun is shining from a cloudless sky.
So might a man, leaving all stress and strife
And disillusioned, suddenly once more
Finding himself upon a sandy shore
Risk a dive into the waves of life.
Whether this time on a love affair he’ll spend
Or writing some late literary treasure
As clear as autumn in his work or pleasure
Will shine his deep awareness of the end.
Being ill and dying should be the province only of old people, not of those who are still young, strong and happy. One bristles at it, one is shocked and one finds it brutal and unnatural, because humans know through their reason that nature does not by any means act in a friendly or considerate manner, but generally they still cling to the gentle, more pleasant sides of nature and try to envisage her as mother, guardian and friend of the living. When she then shatters the beautiful façade and strikes one of us with her paw, it is always like a terrible, violent awakening from cherished habits and illusions.
From a letter written on
23rd August 1947 to Otto Basler
Being left behind, having fought one’s way through life, is also something, and it smacks of a crooked branch waving from an old tree.
From a letter written on
17th October 1928 to Manuel Gasser
Brother Body is often a tiresome because all too close relative. And the ‘Conquest of the World’ is not a condition but an action, even a battle, in which one does not always come out on top.
From a letter written in July/August
1962 to Gertrud von le Fort
I would like to wish you strength and patience in the struggle with old age, in which one can also gain victory in defeat.
From a postcard written c1950 to
Siegfried Seeger