LETTER TO A WARRIOR FROM AN UPRIGHT TOMBSTONE

You have your big stone
Decorated with a picture of a soldier
You have your bow and arrow
Your sword and shield
You have your knightly clothing
You have it all
All that was yours
All that was left from you

You are independent on your soil
I am independent on what is not mine
You are foreign to yours
I am a foreigner to mine
I will never have my stone
Decorated with a picture of a soldier
I will never have my bow and arrow
No sword
No shield
No knightly clothing
Not even what was mine
Not even what will be left from me
I will only have a word
And what is left from it

You will eternally stand defending the homeland
And I will dream of the homeland
Where my footsteps were erased long ago
My stone will not be there
Nor my words
Nothing will be named after me
No words
No letters
Nothing will be known about me
No words
No letters

A word
Alone like that
Tiny
But very lethal
More lethal then a bow and arrow
More lethal then a sword
It will exist somewhere else
But that is not important to you
Just as your bow and arrow are not important to me

Your sword and your shield
With which you dreamt about freedom
They passed their judgment on you
He who lives by something dies by the same thing

You did not know
And you will never know
Freedom is something else
And nobody can give it to you

It is locked into a letter
Locked into a word
I know who keeps the key
And word
And letter