they tell on Christmas Eve—
of gold and pearls and of the light
that comes out of nothing.
5. A BRAVE FISHERMAN
A peasant song
Can you hear, mama, a bird that is singing?
Wings beating in a cage, it doesn’t drink or feed.
A fisherman once said to me
when I was going home:
take a double chain with you
and take my golden ring,
for the night is short
and spring is short
and the river takes the boats.
I bowed to him low
and then I said to him:
the double chain I’ll take, my lord,
I will not take the ring,
for the night is short
and spring is short
and the river takes the boats.
Ah, mama, I keep dreaming:
some snow and smoke I see,
and a sinful soul is crying
before a blessed angel,
for the night is short
and spring is short
and the river takes the boats.
6. A WOUNDED TRISTAN DRIFTS IN A BOAT
Magnificence burns bright,
like a pearl dissolved
in a pitched and darkened bottle.
Yet in the depths of earthly hurts,
it starts to speak like a mighty wave,
like ancient Pontus unsurpassed.
O, my deathly longing, you want
to rise like a seawall from the fog,
to embrace yourself from far away
with the hands of the ocean.
Now with Bran’s silver wand
and the prophetic cry of the reed
confusing what we hear,
for ages you have been learning,
that like a sweetly aching wound,
life is vast at parting.
I like Tristan when from the tower
he jumps into the sea:
his deed is really like a star.
How else can we run from grief
but with courage purer then water?
I like the blood from a deep wound,
how it adorns every caress.
Que faire? I like an epilogue
where the ocean can be heard,
I love its every mask.
O, drift like wounded Tristan,
plucking at restless strings,
playing the music of free suffering
up to the heavens where a hurricane roams.
And within the vast ocean’s longing
the hero’s hushed yearning
is like a hamlet beneath a mountain,
like a household that’s early to bed,
outside a blizzard blowing.
And the blizzard gazes like a pale beast
through a thousand eyes of lashes
watching people sleep, while craftswomen
spin the common flax,
and of the ancient Fleece of Colchis
fate’s spindle whirs its tale.
“We shall not find it.”
“It matters not.”
7. A CONSOLATION DOG
Accept, my friend, a consolation dog,
a lovely dog, a thing of beauty.
It’s made of nothing and all its traits
are rainbows: unfailing bridges
over a rivulet of simple music—
you’ll soon know it by heart.
There floating by is your new, eternal wreath:
buds of candles, flowers of torches.
How this reminds me of fortune-telling,
when they knock at the embers:
sparks fly out
and are counted,
but as in a dream,
when
they
freely spread out
their painted sails.
Yet it’s not the winds that drive them,
but unknown voices.
These ships are ancient, rowing ships.
Their wine-gold oceans
carry us to consolation,
along the merry, lofty isles
stored up for a happier life,
on tender, cutting waves.
What is the roar of waves telling us?
And what is the Nereid saying?
It’s as if someone is thanking us,
keeping a hold of our hand:
“Onward, my poor wanderers!
The bottom of life is simple:
a clean cloth pulled tight
across an embroidery frame.”
It’s not in vain that we walk the hungry deep
as though around the house.
Here reverie embroiders in gold,
and the unforgettable paints
its pictures and names onto a wave:
here is the ball of childhood,
here the lovers’ tryst,
and this is simply a winter’s day.
Here is music framed by a filigree
of nighttime bushes and villages.
Such precious work. Forget it.
And further on: a lime tree.
The lime tree by the city gates.
And Christmas.
And now—there’s nothing to see.
Yet this is the best thing to see.
And when, however much a shame,
we too will be no more,
we shall surely find ourselves
somewhere