THE SHADOW OF DEATH AND LIFE

I

When the breeze
from the gentle side of town
strays off
into the poor parts of town,
it becomes scared,
blindly whirling down the street,
only to rush back out
to the gentle part,
to blow as much dust
into the eyes of the world,
as justice mostly does
into the eyes of the lay people...
or his honor, the judge,
as one of its most reliable
representatives.

II

In that unpleasant repository of dust,
I am standing
and watching the city,
along which the echo of the poor
reverberates all around,
and the boy is silent...
the wind makes him even more so
- as if whispering to him
about his thousand years
of silence
and solitude.
In that dusky hour,
it scrutinizes all the world's secrets
he knows,
in the secrets tied to the orphanage,
on which the night is falling
in the capital,
and the barren and locked-up homes
in the capital.
Maybe he's thinking
of a poor, duped fellow,
a child of the same kind and faith,
who lived the same life
as he did
until his death.

III

And death,
like a motherly shadow,
in a night gown,
is following the boy.
And since that moment, wherever he may go,
another shadow shall follow him,
equally faithful,
equally silent,
just like a shadow of death.
With an unspeakable dignity, that shadow
endures the motherly shadow of death.
That shadow
is showing twofold value:
without a doubt,
it is showing the value of the noble side,
which is to be served,
and the value of the chaste side,
which serves.
And then the shadow shall certainly say
to the human society:
"Now, in wintertime, without a coat,
and on such a cold day!"
My heart is so coldly beating
in my chest.
I am hungry.
Would you be so kind
as to give me a spoon
and feed me?"
And that society,
generally careful
to distribute all the spoons
claims
that there are no spoons left for him,
because he has been invisible
and branded with poverty since his birth,
and, as such, not interesting to the papers
and television,
and where there are no stages,
there are no spoons.

IV

The night is gloomy,
and the insensitivity of the world
penetrates his bones,
like cold moisture
of a winter's night.
It is a good night to die,
and it provides the statistician of death cases
with an extraordinary task.
Whatever...
the boy,
whom the world
never remembered by name,
but rather by his shadow,
feels very weak,
and death spreads its
dark dress,
receiving the boy
with so much sensibility,
as if it was his mother,
while the other shadow
disappears forever,
to the shame of human society.