WORK

When your are at home I have no peace

I can’t find a quiet nook;

And time and again you come to me;

“Daddy, read me a book!”

A timid question, a hesitant step,

For often you’ve heard my quirk;

“Another time, then, my little chap.

You see I’m trying to work!”

And off you go, and you do not know

When that holiday will be,

When the room won’t be dumb and silent so,

And you daddy will be free.

Before in the half-open door you appear,

Your complaint flies on ahead:

“But daddy, you’re only thinking there,

And yet you were working, you said!”

It’s as if I had lied to you, in disgrace,

In the most important thing,

For shame at your daddy flies over your face,

Like the shadow of a wing.

…And before all the bridges are quite burnt through,

Your daddy must see, in haste,

That thinking, the others, and not only you,

Should give, as real work, its right place.

People slowly learn about life, my son,

Through the years, as suns rise and sink.

But I beg you that now, and later on,

You won’t be ashamed – to think!

Wladzimir Paulau