Borrowed Time / Ingeborg Bachmann

Harder days are coming. 
The loan of borrowed time 
will be due on the horizon. 
Soon you must lace up your boots 
and chase the hounds back to the marsh farms. 
For the entrails of fish 
have grown cold in the wind. 
Dimly burns the light of lupines. 
Your gaze makes out in fog: 
the loan of borrowed time 
will be due on the horizon. 

There your loved one sinks in sand; 
it rises up to her windblown hair, 
it cuts her short, 
it commands her to be silent, 
it discovers she's mortal 
and willing to leave you 
after every embrace. 

Don't look around. 
Lace up your boots. 
Chase back the hounds. 
Throw the fish into the sea. 
Put out the lupines! 

Harder days are coming.