Who Am I?

Who am I? They often tell me
I stepped from my cell's confinement
Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
Like a squire from his country house.
Who am I? They often tell me
I used to speak to my warders
Freely and friendly and clearly,
As though it were mine to command.
Who am I? They also tell me
I bore the days of misfortune
Equably, smilingly, proudly,
Like one accustomed to win.


Am I really what others say about me?
Or am I only what I know of myself?
Restless, longing and sick,
Like a bird in a cage,
Struggling for breath,
As though hands were compressing my throat,
Hungering for colors, for flowers, for the songs of birds,
Thirsting for words of kindness and neighborliness,
Shaking with anger at petty tyranny and the slightest slurs,
Bedeviled by anxiety, awaiting great events that might never occur,
Fearfully powerless and worried for friends far away,
Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at doing,
Faint and ready to say farewell to it all.

Who am I? This man or that other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? An hypocrite before others,
And before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am Thine!

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Tegel Prison
March 4, 1946