What Remains Quotes

“No word breaks the dark—
No god lifts a hand—
Wherever I look
This tremendous land.
No shadow hovers,
No form has weight.
And still I hear:
Too late, too late.”
― Hannah Arendt, What Remains: The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt

“Curse:

You will call every woman by my name,
You will mistake every shape for me in vain,
You will sense my nearness in every distance,
You hand will tremble in every stillness.

This is how the end comes. Infinitely parted.
Not tomorrow, not yesterday, not today. Here in the world
We forfeit all to the tides
Endlessly waiting for an empty afterlife.

Reply:

I called every woman by your name,
I mistook every shape for you in vain,
I sensed your nearness in every distance,
My hand trembled in every stillness.

But when the end comes,
I'll think of you no more.
And if the afterlife is too lonely without you,
Then I'll return to drown myself.”
― Hannah Arendt, What Remains: The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt