Snowdrops

"He would like to burrow under the earth like a bulb, like a root, to where it is still warm. 

To hibernate with his thoughts and feelings. 

To remain silent with a shriveling mouth. 

He wishes that all the statements, insults, promises he has uttered would become invalid, 

forgotten by everyone and he himself forgotten too.

But no sooner is he secured in the silence, no sooner does he fancy that he has wrapped himself up like a chrysalis, 

than he is no longer right. 

A wet, cold wind blows his absence of expectations around the corner, 

over a flower-stall filled with evergreens and flowers for the dead. 

And suddenly he is holding in his hands the snowdrops that he didn't want to buy - 

he who wanted to go empty-handed! 

The bells of the snowdrops begin to ring wildly and soundlessly, and he goes to where his ruin awaits him. 

Filled with expectation as never before, 

with the expectation and the desire for salvation accumulated through all the years."

Ingeborg Bachmann