Ein Weinachtslied - a song for Christmas
For Christine Kühn, artist, Berlin 1991

The night lasts long
And is dark.
It was always so.

But in all my life I have had electricity to light the night.
And streetlights that someone else, not I, light.

I look across from my fourth floor window
And see there a candle that night after night lights the dark.
The people who live there come from the sunny south
And can't pay  for the electricity.

Berlin is a city of the northern plain
That spends most of the day in darkness.
Berlin is a city of paintings of darkness - and of light
That struggles to light the dark.

(My artist friend says the people over the street
 Light a candle because it's Christmas time, but ...in October?)

Life is a matter of light and death.
Let the light shine through.
If the light goes out, that is death.
In the dark fear stirs.
Fear the fear that grows in the dark.

Let us light the night, therefore,
With whatever small candle we have.

(And so I reply to my friend: "You're right.
It is indeed Christmas and let us all light a candle!")

©2000 Maria Brandl