Wulf Kirsten
Self
The garden wall down the slope on its knees,
the gaping cracks between stones filled with elder,
bell after bell of wild hop overran the fence
and tied the world closed before my eyes,
I lay in the grass, arms under my head.
A pear tree was crumbling beside me, choked
in brown rot, bundles of shoots poked up into light,
hole after hole artfully placed by a woodpecker
made the tree a flute for starlings,
I looked into the green sun, arms under my head.
The bramble thickets and the hornbeam hedge
gave the bank down to the river a leafy roof,
wagging imps whirred from the wrens' nest
and darted through my private hideaway,
in which I lay, arms under my head.
A daydreamer, happy to idle away whole afternoons
and intently follow pictures in the clouds,
lay quietly in lazy amazement in bloody times
on a grass-tangled meadow sloping out of the village,
his knees drawn up, his arms under his head.
the gaping cracks between stones filled with elder,
bell after bell of wild hop overran the fence
and tied the world closed before my eyes,
I lay in the grass, arms under my head.
A pear tree was crumbling beside me, choked
in brown rot, bundles of shoots poked up into light,
hole after hole artfully placed by a woodpecker
made the tree a flute for starlings,
I looked into the green sun, arms under my head.
The bramble thickets and the hornbeam hedge
gave the bank down to the river a leafy roof,
wagging imps whirred from the wrens' nest
and darted through my private hideaway,
in which I lay, arms under my head.
A daydreamer, happy to idle away whole afternoons
and intently follow pictures in the clouds,
lay quietly in lazy amazement in bloody times
on a grass-tangled meadow sloping out of the village,
his knees drawn up, his arms under his head.
Translated by Stefan Tobler
Page(s) 77
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