Morning
By Friedrich Hölderlin, Translated from the German by Torsten Odland
Dew glints in the grass, as
the waking source begins to rustle;
the beeches tilt their heads; a wind
blows through the shaking, gleaming leaves,
and over there, flames strip through the gray of the clouds;
it surges, this proclamation, in the air
as a flood rolls across a shoreline,
rolling higher and higher, the rivulets.
Come, and come quick, but don’t rush away from me,
you golden day; don’t hurry to the sky’s summit;
my eyes will fly open in faith
to you, so long as you shine in
heaven with such childish beauty, so long
as I make you not haughty, but proud;
if you wanted always to rush,
heavenly wanderer, with you I could!—Of course,
you smile at the overexcitement: that he
would like to be the same as you. Please then, bless
my human doings, you kind one;
grant me, please, a quiet path today.
The Dream
By Madeline Pages
We put ourselves to bed
With hot tea and whiskey,
To the lullaby of that nasal voice
Which narrates the city
In the apartment
With Kerouac and Vonnegut on the walls
And a quintessential still life at the table,
Only empty bottles and a salt shaker,
I was pure ash-white in the dark
I was all burnt on the surface
One layer beyond, however
Was the cold ember of summer
Passed on.
All the people packed around me on the train
Are dancers
The strangers under my window
Sing opera
Everyone is a costume
Everything is a meal.
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