(trilogy for future music of Ernst Krenek)

I

Oh tear-filled one who, like a sky held back,
grows heavy above the landscape of her sorrow.
And when she weeps, the gentle raindrops fall,
slanting upon the sand bed of her heart.

Oh heavy with weeping. Scale to weigh all tears.
Who felt herself not sky, since she was clear
and surely sky exists because the clouds do.

How clear it is, bow close, your land of sorrow,
beneath the stern sky’s oneness. Like a face
that lies there, slowly waking up and thinking
horizontally, into endless depths.