Retrospective

1

Dusk. The old women go to the well.
In the darkness of the chestnuts, a red laughs.
The scent of bread drifts from a shop
And sunflowers sink over the fence.

By the river the inn still sounds mild and soft.
A guitar hums; a jingling of money.
A halo falls upon that small child,
Who waits before the glass door soft and white.

O! blue radiance which she awakens in the panes
Framed by thorns, black and rigidly enraptured.
As if crazy, a crooked scribe smiles
Into water which a wild uproar startles.

2

In the evening, the plague borders her blue garment
And quietly a sinister guest closes the door.
The black burden of the maple sinks through the window;
A boy lays the forehead in her hand.

Often her eyelids sink down evil and heavy.
The child's hands run through her hair
And his tears fall hot and clear
Into the caverns of her eyes black and empty.

A nest of scarlet colored snakes rears up
Sluggishly in her troubled womb.
The arms release a dead shape
That is surrounded by a carpet's sadness.

3

Into the brown garden a bell tolls.
In the darkness of the chestnuts a blueness floats,
The sweet coat of a strange woman.
Scent of mignonettes; and a glowing sense

Of evil. The damp forehead bends cold and pale
Over muck where the rat digs,
Flooded by the tepid scarlet shine of stars;
In the garden apples fall listless and gentle.

The night is black. Ghostly, the foehn billows
Through the sleepwalking boy's white nightgown
And gently the hand of the dead reaches
In his mouth. Sonja smiles soft and beautiful.