Roses, Christ knows how they got to be so lovely,

green skies over the city

in the evening

in the ephemerality of the years!

The yearning I have for that time

when one mark thirty was all I had,

yes, I counted them this way and that,

I trimmed my days to fit them,

days, what am I saying days: weeks on bread and plum mush

out of earthenware pots

brought from my village,

still under the rushlight of native poverty,

how raw everything felt, how tremblingly beautiful!

What good is the luster conferred by European pundits,

the great name,

the pour le merite,

people who shoot their cuffs and tool on,

it’s only the ephemeral that’s beautiful,

looking back, the poverty,

the frowstiness that didn’t know what it was,

sobs, and stands in line for its dole,

what a wonderful Hades

that takes away the frowst,

and the pundits both—

please, no tears,

no one say: oh, I was so lonesome.