Vor-Ostern

Tomorrow, through these deeply furrowed

alleys that, through towering dwellings,

press darkly downward toward the harbor;

the bright gold of the processions will roll;

in place of rags, the inherited

bed-linens, which long to billow,

from the balconies, each higher than the last

(as if mirrored in flowing water) will hang.

at every moment someone fully laden,

and they drag ever-new purchases along;

and yet the stalls still stand there, bursting full.

On the corner, a hacked-open

ox displays its fresh inner walls,

and all the legs end in little flags.

And a hoard as if from a thousand sacrifices

squeezes, bulges, heaves itself out of the gloom

of all the doors, and before the gaping

of the melons the loaves stretch themselves out.

Full of greed and bustle is the dead;

yet far quieter are the young cockerels

and the hung-up billy-goats

and quietest of all the lambs,

and which nod willingly with each step;

while, set in the wall, the brooch of the glass-cased

Spanish Madonna, and the silver

in the diadems

gleams the brighter with the foretaste of candlelight

shimmers. But above, in the window,

an ape shows itself off, squandering every glance,

and swiftly, in a presumptuous

posture performs gestures that are unbecoming.