Retrospective

An Autumn Evening

To Karl Röck

The brown village. A darkness is often reflected
By striding along walls that stand in autumn,
Figures: both man and woman, deceased, walk
In cool rooms to prepare their bed.

Here boys play. Grave shadows broaden
Over brown manure. Maids walk
Through moist blueness and sometimes they look
Out of eyes filled with the sounds of night.

For the lonely there is an inn;
It waits patiently under dark arches
Where golden clouds of tobacco move around.

Yet always the self is black and near.
In the shadow of ancient arches the drunk ponders
After wild birds that are drawn far away.

Poetry Prose Letters