Also fragen wir beständig,
Bis man uns mit einer Handvoll
Erde endlich stopft die Mäuler --
Aber ist das eine Antwort?
We keep on asking, said the old not a Jew,
not a German, dying of the lead-cancer --
until our mouths are plugged with a handful
of earth -- but is that an answer?
Well, in the same sense as the fingernail-white
is an answer to the cloud-eaten sun;
even if you can't step in the river twice,
you can drown in it as handily as in the same one.