Oskar Pastior
O Magdalen!
The town in which my capacity for thought is
frittered away is a large, proud, round town.
The thought of horse is not, e.g., part of it.
This town which is my one and all consisting of
two halves of Merseburg is called also Merseburg,
because, even if .1 do think of horse, something
not part of it, maybe my one and all, is dimin-
ished in it; and consists of two large, proud
hemispheres, because these hemispheres fall
apart if my horses run out of breath. Right
there at the gates of my town, which gates are
held together by spells, there the horses sweat
and strain. They use up a lot of breath, When
Merseburg falls apart at both Merseburg gates,
it is either daytime or it is night. I
need day as well as night time for thinking -
which makes me run out of breath. My town in
which breath runs out combines not only phy-
sics, but also the horses, to think of which is
not part of it - they heave and split, it’s
then I think that my capacity for thought runs
out. When the proud hemispheres fall apart, I
think, even the proud words run out of force
and one and all departs -- to the northnorthsouth.
Translated by Christopher Middleton
Page(s) 65
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