The Heavens

The heavens are blue
gold are the stars
white are the clouds.
That always remained.
The heavens are above the clouds.
The heavens are beautiful.
The heavens are high,
and in the heavens I did not remain.
The heavens are here.

Translated by Gary Sullivan.

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Der Himmel

Der Himmel ist blau.
gold sind die Sterne
weiß sind die Wolken.
Das Blieb so immer
Der Himmel ist über den Wolken.
Der Himmel ist schön.
Der Himmel ist hoch.
und am Himmel blieb ich nicht da.
Der Himmel ist hier.

* * *

Notes

I've taken some liberty with this one. Claudia Stoeffler, in In the Realms of the Unreal (the book of "outsider" writing from 1991, not the Henry Darger documentary from 2005), translates "Himmel" as "sky," which is correct, of course. The other possibility would be "heaven." In my own version, I've translated "Himmel" as "heavens," which has that same "could mean heaven, could mean way-up sky" feeling in English that I would imagine (imagine) is true in German of der Himmel.