Retrospective

1

At afternoon music hums in the woods.
In the corn solemn scarecrows revolve.
Along the way elder bushes are gently blown over;
A house glimmers strange and vague.

In gold a scent of thyme floats,
A bright number rises on a stone.
On a meadow children play ball,
Then a tree begins to circle before you.

You dream: the sister combs her blonde hair,
Also a far-away friend writes you a letter.
A haystack flees through grayness yellowed and askew
And sometimes you float light and miraculous.

2

Time trickles away. O sweet Helios!
O image sweet and clear in the toad pool;
Wonderfully an Eden sinks in sand.
A bush cradles yellowhammers in its lap.

A brother of yours dies in an execrated land
And, steely, your eyes behold yourself.
A scent of thyme there in gold.
A boy sets a fire in the hamlet.

The lovers glow anew among butterflies
And swing cheerfully around stone and number.
Crows flutter up around a nauseous meal
And your forehead rages through the soft green.

In the thorn bush a deer quietly dies.
A happy day of childhood glides after you.
The gray wind, flighty and vague,
Swills decayed scents through the dusk.

3

An old lullaby makes you very anxious.
By the wayside a woman piously suckles her child.
Sleepwalking you hear her fountain well up.
A sound of consecration falls from the apple boughs.

And bread and wine are sweet from hard labor.
Silverly your hand fumbles for fruit.
The dead Rachel goes through farmland.
With peaceful gestures the green beckons.

Blessed also are the flowering wombs of poor maids
Who stand dreaming there by the old fountain.
The lonely go gladly along silent paths
Among God's creatures without sin.