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Following by eye the dark beams
as they rise and meet, rise and meet,
learning these new rooms’ shades
of natural and artificial light,
I smell rain on stone, in the view
of a sky of stone, storey upon storey
of weavers’ apartments, long derelict.
Five years in a foreign country –
the ghosts are not my ghosts.
This morning I hummed a childhood tune,
this afternoon I rummage for the words.
Tonight clouds will obscure the stars,
forsake me in unnavigable water.
What’s to do but drop anchor; wait
and wake to the smell of rain, the view
of a sky of stone; hum an old tune
and wait, humming, for words –
From Magma No. 36 (Winter 2006)
Камень. Камены.
A swan engages in self-reflection.
The gardens of Leto do not commemorate Niobe.
Riven, the vernal ice drifts on the Never River.
Eva my daughter has a fever. Her face looks thinner.
She ate bread and butter my daughter.
She wants me to lie next to her, so that she may grab onto the sides of my head
and drift off to sleep.
Vater. Water.
She wakes up, goes to peepee. I hold her over the bowl.
I try to wrap her in a bathrobe. No, I’m schwitzing. I do not need it.
I’m not cold, I’m wet.
She sneezes, a Popel hanging out of her nose. Der Popel, but die Pappel.
Ich sah meine Pappel, and so on.
She “reads” Asterix and is delighted when I tell her that Ave is Eva
spelled backwards.
Papa, says Eva holding a brownish apple, schmeiss this weg. I schmeiss it weg.
We live in Berlin.
Rome has fallen, ye see it lying
Heaped in undistinguished ruin:
Nature is alone undying.
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