FOR THE TREE'S
SAKE(1935)
You Are The
Seed
You are the seed and I
your mould.
You lie inside me and
grow.
You are the child which
is awaited.
I am your
mother.
Earth, give your
warmth!
Blood, give your
essence!
An unknown force today
needs
all of life I have
had.
The streaming warm
wave
knows no
dust,
further it wants to
create,
and break
forth.
That is why there is
living pain
inside me
now:
something is growing
and tearing me -
dearest,
you!.
Of Course It
Hurts
Of course it hurts when
buds burst.
Otherwise why would
spring hesitate?
Why would all our
fervent longing
be bound in the frozen
bitter haze?
The bud was the casing
all winter.
What is this new thing,
which consumes and bursts?
Of course it hurts when
buds burst,
pain for that which
grows
and for that which
envelops.
Of course it is hard
when drops fall.
Trembling with fear
they hang heavy,
clammer on the branch,
swell and slide -
the weight pulls them
down, how they cling.
Hard to be uncertain,
afraid and divided,
hard to feel the deep
pulling and calling,
yet sit there and just
quiver -
hard to want to
stay
and to want to
fall.
Then, at the point of
agony and when all is beyond
help,
the tree's buds burst
as if in jubilation,
then, when fear no
longer exists,
the branch's drops
tumble in a shimmer,
forgetting that they
were afraid of the new,
forgetting that they
were fearful of the journey -
feeling for a second
their greatest security,
resting in the
trust
that creates the
world.
Farewell
I would have woken you
to a nakedness like a naked
spring
evening,
when the stars
overflow
and the Earth burns
beneath melting snow.
I would have seen you
just once
sink into the darkness
of creative chaos,
would have seen your
eyes like a wide-opened space,
ready to be
filled,
would have seen your
hands like blossoming flowers,
empty, new,
awaiting.
You leave, and nothing
of this have I given you.
I never reached, where
your soul lies bare.
You go, and you take
nothing of me with you -
leaving me to my
defeat.
I remember another
farewell:
we were hurled from the
crucible as one being,
and when we were
parted, we no longer knew
what was I or you
...
But you - like a bowl
of glass you have left my hand,
so complete as only a
dead thing and so unchangeable,
with no memories other
than light fingermarks
which are washed away
in water.
I would have woken you
to a formlessness like a
formless flickering
flame,
which at last finds its
living shape, its own ...
Defeat, oh
defeat!
My Skin Is Full Of
Butterflies
My skin is full of
butterflies, of fluttering wings -
they flit out over the
meadow and delight in their honey
and flit home and die
in small sad spasms,
and not one grain of
pollen is disturbed by light feet.
For them the sun is
hot, immeasurable, older than time
itself ...
But under skin and
blood and inside marrow
captured sea-eagles
move heavily heavily,
spread-winged, never
releasing their prey.
How confused would they
be, once, in the sea's spring
storm?
How would they cry,
when the sun fired white-hot its
yellow eyes?
Closed is the cave!
Closed is the cave!
And between the claws
writhe white like young roots
my innermost
fibres.
About me Words from the
heart My
beautiful boy The
kindest of souls
Words by my favourite
writers Random
pictures