A day like yesterday and like tomorrow
This is no day which might stand out from other days:
grey folds are hanging earthwards from the skies,
the field's asleep, and night and wind haze
branch and bark, breathing on them an icy guise.
Empty and freezing in the ground a hamlet's houses cower -
no smoke ascends, no dog is barking from far back,
the river stands in white, and lonely is the hour;
the snow falls endless over field and track.
On the horizon the wide forests stand,
just shimmering like a dull wall;
with sluggish flap dark crows are soaring over land,
and heavy on ice and river bank they fall.
Thus we keep watch in boundless spaces, waking -
the scrunching underfoot sounds hollow and subdued,
like in feverish dreams the eyes burn aching,
somewhere out there a late shot echoes skewed.
Of fame, of august goals, what can we say?
Here we are standing, after the will of fate
and since the dead who fell just yesterday
gave to us, mute and silent, this mandate.
What do we know of your hot-burning sorrow,
far tender happiness, lovely endearing view -
It is a day, like yesterday and like tomorrow:
Only orders bring us back to you.
28th Jan. 1943
Von dir -
Wenn ich deine Schrift nur sehe,
- sei sie mir auch ohne Sinn -
bist du ganz in meiner Nähe
und auch ich dir nahe bin.
Runder Mond hängt überm Walde,
leuchtet dir und leuchtet mir,
Soldaten ziehn am Waldesrande
verstaubt und müde ins Quartier.
Wir lagern tief in Gras und Ähren
sind allem brüderlich verwandt.
So alle Not und Bangnis klären
die starken Zeichen deiner Hand.
Morgen, ruft der Krieg uns dröhnend
über Hügel, Tal und Fluß,
spreche ich nochmal, versöhnend,
deinen lieben guten Gruß.
Wenn ich deine Schrift nur sehe,
- sei sie mir auch ohne Sinn -
bist du ganz in meiner Nähe
und auch ich dir nahe bin.
28. January 1943
Kurt Müller
(sr.)
born on 8th August 1904 in Elberfeld
died on 23rd December 1982 in Gütersloh
died on 23rd December 1982 in Gütersloh
Poems in the war 1941 - 1943
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