Yet it is fearful how God randomly
Scatters the living, and how very far.
And how fearsome it was to leave
The sight of dear friends and walk off
Alone far over the mountains, where
The divine spirit was twice
Recognized in unison.
It hadn’t been prophesied to them:
In fact it seized them right by the hair
Just at the moment when the fleeing
God suddenly looked back,
And they swore an oath to get him
To stop, and they reached their hands to
One another as if bound by a golden rope,
Calling out evil.
But right after he dies—he whom beauty
Found so attractive that his appearance
Became a marvel and the gods
Pointed towards him—
And when those who lived together
Thereafter in his memory became
Puzzled and no longer understood
One another—and when the fame
Of the demi-god and his disciples
Is blown away but the sand and willows
And temples remain untouched—
And even when the Highest turns aside
His countenance, so that nothing
Beyond death can be seen either
In heaven or on the green earth—
What does all this mean?
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