Christopher Meckel
German Poems
After Work
And one day we caught sight of him
on the back of the whale
freezing, transparent, small,
and he cried: I didn't create the sea,
fellow men, I swear it,
nor the spring tide nor the typhoon
I did not create either you or your earth,
help me, if that's your wish, help me to land.
But we just sat there, keeping
our pipes alight
and heard him howl, out there, on his vessel.
poetrymagazines' note: Reproduced with kind permission of the Michael Hamburger Trust.
Translated by Michael Hamburger
Page(s) 156
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