National Translation Month - NTM: Klaus Merz Translated from the German by Marc Vincenz

Pinacoteca*

Clouds roll
adamantly by and light
rain falls, falls.


One woman pours
milk, the other
combs her hair—for
three hundred years:


Not life, said
Malraux, but the statues,
will be our witnesses.


*From Out of the Dust.
This translation originally appeared in Asymptote.