What would you be, human, if it’s hard
for you to be a human ? Become a streetlamp,
quietly spreading
its light onto humans.
Let them be as they are, because as it is
they are always themselves with a human face.
Be good to them, these humans,
and impartial like the streetlamp
that silently lightens the drunkard’s face
and vagrants and students
over the lonely road.
Be a streetlamp,
if you can’t be a human
because it is hard to be a human.
A human has only two hands
but should help thousands.
So be a streetlamp
that lights a thousand happy faces,
that lights the lonely, the wanderer.
Be a lamp with a single bulb,
a person in a magic square
signalling with a green hand.
Be a lamp, a lamp,
a lamp.

Srečko Kosovel: A STREETLAMP. A Shot in the Silence .