Status Updates From Poems

You will hunt me down from death to birth
On the painful track of the creations,
The glorious track of the creations.
3/3

I will be born again, flowers,
Tree and grass I will be born again,
Fish and deer, bird and butterfly.
And out of every form,
Longing will drag me up the stairways
To the last suffering,
Up to the suffering of men.
2/3

All Deaths
I have already died all deaths,
And I am going to die all deaths again,
Die the death of the wood in the tree,
Die the stone death in the mountain,
Earth death in the sand,
Leaf death in the crackling summer grass
And the poor bloody human death.
1/3

And you shall know that whatever is noble
In your soul is always a warrior
Even though he bears no weapons,
That every day a struggle and a destiny is waiting.
Do not forget this I
Think of the blood, the shambles, the ruin
On which your own future reposes,
And how, even more, upon death and sacrifice is builded
The tiniest happiness.
Then your life will flame out more
And one day gather even death
Into its arms.
4-4

Is only a loan, and that whatever was lost
In the past, and the heir you long for,
And the farthest future,
Rolls through your blood,
And that for every hair on your head
Somebody endured one struggle, one pain, one death.
3/4

And if my wish for you has any power,
So war will remain
For you, always, only a dim legend,
So you will never stand in the field
And never die
And never rush out of a house crumbling in fire.
Nevertheless, you will be soldiers one day
And one day you will know
That the sweet breath of this life,
The precious possession of the heartbeat,
2/3

To Children
(AT THE END OF 1914)
You know nothing of time,
You know only that, somewhere in the distance,
A war is being fought,
You whittle your wood into sword and shield and spear
And play your game blissfully in the garden,
Set up tents,
Carry white bandages marked with the red cross.
1/3

Waves through the world, and within it
The thousand stars, shuddering, turn pale.

Woods dream my dream,
House and pear tree tell me
The forgotten story of common childhood.

The world and my self, everything
Within and without me, grows into one.

Tear the veil away,
So light can fall on me among the confusing paths.
Andante
Again, every time, comforting
And, every time, new in the gleam of endless creation,
The world laughs in my eyes,
Comes alive and stirs into a thousand breathing forms

Spring Day
Wind in bushes and bird piping
And high in the highest fresh blue
A haughty cloud ship, becalmed …
I dream of a blond woman,
I dream of my youth,
The high heaven blue and outspread
Is the cradle of my longing
Where I choose to lie calm
And blessedly warm
With the soft humming,
Just like a child held
On his mother’s arm.

The First Flowers
Beside the brook
Toward the willows,
During these days
So many yellow flowers have opened
Their eyes into gold.
I have long since lost my innocence, yet a memory
Touches my depth, the golden hours of morning, and gazes
Brilliantly upon me out of the eyes of flowers.
I was going to pick flowers;
Now I leave them all standing
And walk home, an old man.

Lying in Grass
Is this everything now, the quick delusions of flowers,
And the down colors of the bright summer meadow,
The soft blue spread of heaven, the bees’ song,
Is this everything only a god’s
Groaning dream,
The cry of unconscious powers for deliverance?
The distant line of the mountain in the blue,
Is this too only a convulsion,
Only the wild strain of fermenting nature

On a Journey
(IN MEMORY OF KNULP)
Don’t be downcast, soon the night will come,
When we can see the cool moon laughing in secret
Over the faint countryside,
And we rest, hand in hand.
Don’t be downcast, the time will soon come
When we can have rest. Our small crosses will stand
On the bright edge of the road together,
And rain fall, and snow fall,
And the winds come and go.

Evil Time
Now we are silent
And sing no songs any more,
Our pace grows heavy;
This is the night, that was bound to come.
Give me your hand,
Perhaps we still have a long way to go.
It’s snowing, it’s snowing.
Winter is a hard thing in a strange country.
Where is the time
When a light, a hearth burned for us?
Give me your hand!
Perhaps we still have a long way to go.

Mountains at Night
The lake has died down,
The reed, black in its sleep,
Whispers in a dream.
Expanding immensely into the countryside,
The mountains loom, outspread.
They are not resting.
They breathe deeply, and hold themselves,
Pressed tightly, to one another.
Deeply breathing,
Laden with mute forces,
Caught in a wasting passion.

Only the poet is missing,
The lonely one who looks on,
The bearer of human longing, the pale image
Of whom the future, the fulfillment of the world
Has no further need.

the luminous
Vault of heaven in the future is my home:
Often in full flight of longing my soul storms upward,
To gaze on the future of blessed men,
Love, overcoming the law, love from people to people.

The Poet
Only on me, the lonely one,
The unending stars of the night shine,
The stone fountain whispers its magic song,
To me alone, to me the lonely one
The colorful shadows of the wandering clouds
Move like dreams over the open countryside.

“Don't be downcast, soon the night will come,
When we can see the cool moon laughing in secret
Over the faint countryside, And we rest, hand in hand.
Don't be downcast, the time will soon come When we can have rest. Our small crosses will stand On the bright edge of the road together, And rain fall, and snow fall, And the winds come and go.” P. 31