Really, from above everything looks different—if there are no clouds, you can see the people that move below like ants, and secretly, their joys. You can hear timid prayers, which here are entered and accepted as knowledge for the naked, round bellies of your colleagues.

They envy and hate you, insulted when your thunderechoing laughs sound between the clouds. Your beard easily flutters over them, and you fly off again farther into some godforsaken corner to sleep off the dizziness in a dusky blueberry bush.

I'm washing glasses by the sink, I listen to their murmur of voices and quietly smile—I alone know where you disappeared to in the middle of the afternoon, I close my eyes—I alone know where you will arrive tonight.

In earlier times I was allowed to furtively touch your shoulders, when I served the long table where you enjoyed redwhitered wines.

I was the ruler of dull sheep, but my birch-bark crown got left in the field when an eagle, grabbing me, lifted into the air. When first my chest was pricked by his sharp and soft beak.

Translated by M.O.Beitiks