Europa

He used to kiss the girls
He used to fight the men
He used to sing La Marseillaise
Like it was Hallelujah

He used to throw his stones
He used to pluck the grass
He used to wander
Through the corn

He wrings his hands
He taps his foot
He pricks his ears
At sounds that aren't there

He praised the dead
And in the end
The dead received him

Brother Dmitri

And who will deliver us from ourselves
and who will make our strivings upright?

Who will make us die the little deaths-
right shame, right fear, right folly, right hurt?

Who will kiss the lepers,
who will bury all the children?

Who will be the stinging salt
that hurts and heals the wounds?

Who will stand and speak for me
when I have not feet, nor words?

Who will be the fullness
when I am empty-handed?

Who will sow and reap and sow anew,
who will speak and cease to speak?

Who will burn the city down
and build a world from ash?

Neuwelt

Do you ever consider the roads
you drive on? I have been in places
without trees and without hills, where
the earth is like a sea, where there
is only the ripple of tall grass and
the slow rolling of distant clouds, where
the sky looks broader, more immense.

But here, at home, there is nothing like
that, no plains, no unbroken fields.
The roads here bend through thick, close
woods, all leafy trees and soil
underfoot. In the evenings, when the
sun shines down on the drifting, spinning
motes of dust, it seems as though the
trees are themselves a city, these dim
and ancient woods a nation. And sometimes,
where the branches stretch and touch
over the pavement, I feel as though these
streets and roads are the arteries of
some unseen heart, vast and thumping
and, I think, inexorable.

This was the first America, four hundred
years ago. They came to build Jerusalem,
on the shore of the haunted waste. Hollanders
and Englishmen- perhaps some blend of both-
their aims were better than they, and I
love them for that. This was the first
America, and perhaps will be the last.

Mein Schatz, Bei Dir

I like to whistle when
I walk, because I cannot
sing. And I would like
to sing.

I am sitting now, listening
to the little rainfall and
the far-off thunder. My blinds
are down. I cannot see the lightning.

I had a dream last night, and
it was good. So good that the
waking hurt, and hurts.
I hope to dream again.

It is too cold for summer,
here, but I don't mind.
I have been too much
in the sun.

Terrible Ivan

Why grasp and claw and tear
for life? Why run until your
feet cannot? Why pant and
strive and wear us out?

Why not suffer, why not die?
Why not stand and die
instead? Why not instead
accept the blade, the stone,
the shot, the shell? Why not
accept and fall and die?

Why not fall and grip the
grass, fall and grip and
twist the grass, grip and
twist and pull the grass,
and gasp and retch and
breathe your last?

Why not gasp and retch
and wrench and bleed
and bleed and bleed and
breathe your last?
What terror lives in death
and dark, where too the
Word has been?

Falcon and Gyrfalcon

The fire and the knife of bronze

are passing through the fields of corn

the lightning and the sword that winnows

go sifting through the wheat

The fingers of the weaver now

are walking in the warp the

weft the hunter's hands are

shaping horn and hide

The whetstone and the spears appear

and the oil for the shields the tower

stands on spoiled ground and

Abel cries aloud

The Brothers B

Wer kommt hier? Wer ist er,
der in das Reich der Luft und
der Finsternis kommt?

Er, der in dem Name
Gottes spricht und geht.

His ears ring, his fingers twitch
to the stamp and clash and sting of war.
He finds shade in a dry place and eats
his fill of stony honey and cloud-dropped bread.

Yahweh has set on his mouth
a seal, and on his back a sign.
He makes his feet strong and
his teeth like bronze to grind and tear.

Wer ist er?
Er ist Israel, der
mit Gott kämpft.
Und er geht um
die Welt.