Every death

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Every death I have died already,
Every death I will die once again,
Dying the wooden death in the tree,
Dying the stone death in the mountain,
Earthy death in the sand,
Leafy death in the rustling summer grasses
And the poor, bloody death of human beings.

As flowers I will once again be reborn,
As trees and grass I will once again be reborn,
As fish and deer, bird and butterfly.
And from every form
I will be torn upstairs by longing
To the last suffering,
To the suffering of human beings.

O what a quivering strained bow,
When the raging fist of longing
Demands the two poles of life
Start bending towards one another!
Often and many times more
You will keep hunting me from death to birth
On the painful way of how things are,
On the splendid way of how things are.

Alle Tode
Hermann Hesse, December 1919

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