SONGS ABOUT FATE

I

Fate is a desert.
God dwells in its sand.
If you seek your Sinai
you receive his command.

Fate is a strip of land
with many stones spread.
Happy he that endures:
he shall earn bread.

Into heaven's halls
no one goes before
he has stepped unafraid
through Fate's door.

II

You know you bear a shackle
and hear the chain rattle.
But one who hammers hard and long
Can make a shield of its metal.

You know you bear a poison.
But all death's juices
becme in a wise and careful hand
kind healing forces.

You think you bear a cross,
but it's a tool, you know.
Your life's the material. Look here, take hold,
and let the martyr go!

III

Wish for nothing that others have had:
all happens one single time.
Wish for nothing that some bard
has sung in his loveliest rhyme.

One star-bright night, when you lie awake,
Fate will knock at your door
and seek you with eyes of colour strange,
which no one spoke of before.

She fell like dew from the air,
from the bosom of space she came,
and no one, no one has met her gaze,
and no one has given her a name.

To you she has come from Nothing's land,
she has been created for you,
and no one, no one in age upon age
has kissed her lips more than you.

For more information, please visit the website of David McDuff and his own pages with the translations.