Setting Forth

Do not look back
What would you see!
What was is gone
Like smoke, and free
You ride the dawn.

Be deaf to pasts.
Their call corrodes.
What was has died.
The Word will guide
From foul abodes.

Do not think back.
What was is cleft.
One refuge fair
And ripe is left.
The refuge: There!

No dreams for pasts!
Now grip you staff.
What was is hail
On frozen trail
Where north winds laugh.

No love for pasts!
What was is cracked.
The days when you
Were vision-racked
Grew faint and few.

No grudge for pasts!
What was - forgive;
Fling out your hands
To sunset lands
And stride and live!

Reject return!
Spring stirs the clods.
What was is gauds.
Is death. You wear
The wanderer's garb.
To go - what pain!
To go - what joy!
Do not remain!

- Karl Wolfskehl, German-Jewish exile, 1933

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