What Will You Do?

Translated by B. Deutsch and A. Yarmolinsky

What will you do, God, when I die?

I am your jar (if cracked, I lie?)

Your well-spring (if the well go dry?)

I am your craft, your vesture I—

You lose your purport, losing me.

When I go, your cold house will be

Empty of words that made it sweet.

I am the sandals your bare feet

Will seek and long for, wearily.

Your cloak will fall from aching bones.

Your glance, that my warm cheeks have cheered

As with a cushion long endeared,

Will wonder at a loss so weird;

And, when the sun has disappeared,

Lie in the lap of alien stones.

What will you do, God? I am feared.