Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Terminal B, Departure Lounge
Just behind the security lock
on the polished black granite
this feather, rust-brown, golden, snow-whitelytongued,
leopard-flecked, brindled.
Lift it up, it weighs little,
don’t be afraid to examine it!
Bustard? Partridge? Pheasant?
No flutter, no bird’s cry.
Under the glass roof
only monitors and monotonous voices.
“Mr Buffon please come to the exit gate.”
It will be a manual rocker arm,
the flags not quite symmetrical,
something fluffy at the spool
and at the dim end of the keel
the soul has its seat. How the light plays
with the iridescent colours
and how, when you scrutinize
your find more clearly, hook,
loop and feather rays so finely,
so microscopically interlace
that you’re moved to tears!
But this much you can see with your naked eye,
that it’s perfect,
the lost feather,
as behind the protective partition glass
on Bay 36 the noiselessly thrumming
jumbo jet you have missed.
Translated by Michael Hamburger
Page(s) 98-99
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