Gone and passed is the gold of day,

The willow by the dark pondWeeps soundlessly in the night.A heart extinguishes – and placidlyThe fogs flood and rise –Silence, silence!

Landscapes are mirrored in the gray skyAnd sometimes one hears the faun scream dreadfully.Its golden grin appears garishly in the grove.In cresses the bumblebees’ thick of battle clamors,A rider trots past on a sallow white horse.The poplars glow in vague rows.The little girl who drowned in the pond todayRests as a saint in the bleak…

In the evening the still shape appears in the windowShe, however, closes the yellowed curtain –The trickling of the glass beads reminded of our childhood,At night we found a black moon in the forestThe soft sonata sounds in a mirror’s bluenessLong embracesHer smile glides over the dying one’s mouth.

Thousand-year-old yews shudderIn the rising falling chant of the wind.The moths dance as if they would die soon,My glance drinks weeping the shadows and lights.Far away women’s faces floatGhostly painted in the blue.A smile trembles in the sunshine,Meanwhile I slowly stride on;Unending love gives escort.Quietly the hard rock greens.

the cuckoos withhold their misery.The cornstalks slant deeper into themselves,the red poppies.The blackening sky cracks openover the hills.The ancient song of the cricketdies in the harbor.It never stirs,the crown of the chestnut.Up the winding stairsyour dress rustles.The candle’s glowing silencedarkens the room.Your silver handquenches it.Tonight, no wind, no stars.Translated by Eric Plattner…………………………………………………………………SommerAm Abend schweigt die…

And lakes of blue, the sunMore darkly rolls. The night surroundsWarriors dying and the wild lamentOf their fragmented mouths.Yet silently there gather in the willow combeRed clouds inhabited by an angry god,Shed blood, and the chill of the moon.All roads lead to black decay.Under golden branching of the night and starsA sister’s shadow sways through…