"Come"

Oh come.
Thou vault of amethyst, enormous night.
Oh come.
Thou gold-embroidered cloth on fragrant bread.
Oh come.
Thou granary of stars with sifting seeds of light.
Oh come.
Thou serpent, copper dark, who spray's life's venom in the dead.

Oh come.
Ecstatic melody that soars above the everyday.
Oh come.
I want to seize you with my lips before I die.
Oh come.
My red-brown rose so rare and far away.
Oh come.
Thou velvet mouth of dew so filled with spices sweet and dry.

Oh come.
Gray, monumental tower that fled into the barren night.
Oh come.
I crouch with barn-owls on a broken window's sill.
Oh come.
Thou stony law that crumbling sank from sight.
Oh come.
And I will raise the shattered tablet on some somber hill.

Oh come.
Thou magic ring, round-woven with mysterious signs.
Oh come.
And close my head in quietness, my brow in sleep.
Oh come.
Blue-rushing spring that breaks an iris out of every vine.
Oh come.
Thou weeping rainbow, fringed with grass and flowing deep.

Oh come.
My child. Oh come, oh come, my child.
Oh come.
My hollow drumbeat deadens me no more.
Oh come.
And if you will not come, then take me in a tempest blowing wild.
Oh come.
And cast my dust upon a distant shore.

--Gertrud Kolmar (tr Henry A Smith)