My Perspectives

It is time for us to remember how 
you came from the manor house at dusk,
unsolicited, to see me, your bathrobe
lightly thrown over your shoulders.

And at this moment, everything that was unrealistic
was inconceivably close:
the flowers on the starched tablecloth,
tea and hot sausages,

Cozy light and the noise of children,
and these tender hands –
the senses cannot believe
the sight and the sounds.

But what next? Where to go?
How to provide for the children?
All roads lead to a dead end
under the callous indifference of a gray sky.

I go before the bishop as an uninvited guest
and I enter the reception room I know so well
“Serve the church? I don’t have the strength take that on.
A convict, a counterrevolutionary … oh dear, no.”

“We are glad to help you, of course, but” – 
answers the city council –
“for a man of your views
there are no intelligent jobs.”

I could work hard
to support myself for a while – 
the legs have stayed in prison.
What good is an invalid? 

It’s clear the bishops are fully booked.
They don’t care about my future.
Guilty? Was he right? – Throw him out. 
And there…let him figure out how to survive.

And the chatter becomes an invisible thread,
that weaves itself like a noose around my neck:
“cripple, counterrevolutionary, Pope, convict…
and he’s still here?

There’s no place on earth for such a person,
let him suffocate in the noose.”
Here I do not take it upon myself to argue
and I remain silent. Silence.