Into darkness sink all images;
God paints on the cavas of life once more.
Standing armored to fight with crest and shield,
Meanwhile the enemy blackens the field.
And the heards are dying of thirst below the blazing suns,
The ice cliff walls now flow into a little brook hissing
Into the earth, and you are fishing
Where there are no fish.
Then into the fiery abyss you dive
Where, trembling, you find that the dead are alive.
In a hell where they horribly change and swirl
As around Gorgo's head they unfurl.
Tortured, the broken eye
Stares down into hell's bubbling lye.
Your body, plowed through with the furrow of the worm,
Torn is the shell of your tower, once firm,
Struck down by a bolt of fire
As you drown in the hellish mire.
You to the surf, God calls
To the surf that breaks on His kingdom's massive walls
Where blocks that shine as the sun so fair
Shelter his original human pair.
Redeeming from His blood a new form and shape
An image that only God can create.
Into darkness sink all images,
God paints on the canvas of life.
Ernst Fuchs, Venice 1984
