Tell me, how we could have come this far
From rounded pebbles and smoothed surfaces
To this innermost discord, this stressful state?
We have gone so far away from those innocent grounds
And have returned to find only a loss of value.
Bits and pieces of habit haunt through our mind.
We couldn’t change the world
And so it did change us — thoroughly.
The turn of the world isn’t our turn anymore;
Helplessly we watch it spin, breathless, stunned.
Reality seems like illusion, our past is our present
And that of which we dreamt, looks like a mirage now.
We told ourselves what we would do
When the time, which now is so unreal, was reached,
And now only our dreams and hopes are gone.
We left our future in the trenches of yesterday
And find us on a plane without horizon
Stretching endlessly, leaving us without orientation.
The simple things in life have to be learned anew
For we have lost all our knowledge.
We are bereft of youth, bereft of chances.
Images of ourselves were shown to us,
Reflected by an obscure part of our being
And so we did what we did
And now there’s no chance of changing it.
Of course we could have refused —
But we didn’t know then what we know now!
And yes, I know, we will be judged by what we’ve done
But you’re always more clever afterwards
And what does youth know of reason?
Now there’s nothing left but memories and dreams and memories...
And nothing better to do than to go along; hoping
That our wounds and inner conflicts will be healed
By time.
