Ernst Stadler's "The Saying"

"The Saying"

In an old book
I stumbled across a saying.
It was like a stranger
punching me in the face,

it won’t stop
gnawing at me.
When I walk around at night,
looking for a beautiful girl,

when a lie or a description
of life or somebody’s fake
way of being with people
occurs instead of reality,

when I betray myself with
an easy explanation
as if what’s dark is clear,
as if life doesn’t have thousands

of locked, burning gates,
when I use words without really
having known their strict openness
and put my hands around things

that don’t excite me,
when a dream hides my face with soft hands
and the day avoids me,
cut off from the world,

cut off from who I am deeply,
I freeze where I am
and see hanging in the air in front of me
STOP BEING A GHOST!

–Ernst Stadler (paraphrase by Stephen Berg)
from The Steel Cricket: Versions 1958-1997 also found in Poet's Choice by Edward Hirsch

This poem moves me. It reminds me that all too often we find ourselves just going through the motions instead of chasing the bliss, accepting the surface explanations instead of clawing our way to the true heart. Another more literal translation of the last line from the original German is "Man, become substantial" according to Hirsch. I think I like this even better. The idea of becoming substantial, becoming someone who is aware, someone who matters, someone able to stand for something.

I wish I had time and an opportunity to learn German (as, I suppose, I wish I had time to learn all the languages) so I could read this poem in its original. I have a feeling that every line is a powerful as this one, and I hate that I'm shut out of that by the linguistic barrier. Maybe I can find a way to do that on my own, with a book or something. That would be a great way to work on being substantial, I think, to start appreciating the world on a deeper level.