Nous ne connaîtrons jamais leurs noms.

For the mind, the spirit, the soul of the world.

Il fait un rêve…

Il fait un rêve d’olive noire. 

Tombé au pied de l’arbre porteur, pressentant le désert 

avant d’en effleurer le sable, sa peau se ride. L’absence 

du regard de ses semblables le colore, et sa forme

qui roule s’arrondit lorsqu’elle s’épuise.

Cette nuit, la frayeur crée le noyau.

Osiris 101, 2025

Translated from the German by Gerald Chapple

INCIDENT

The very moment
I opened the book
the letters buzzed
up and away: leaving me
with beautifully bound oblivion

Bending speechless over blank
pages of history I
no longer knew
what was what is
who I am
can be want to be
will be

Agitated scribes
leapt around with giant nets
brought me their catch
then shook the tired remnants
back into their proper places.

Osiris 68, 2009

Elegy 3

Finally at four in the morning

silence comes. A long time on the way

from its forgotten source

and almost unexpected.

For a moment in the grey of dawn

you’re overwhelmed by its mercy.

Osiris 89, 2019

THE BOOK OF IOWA

When sleep is tiny
as a petal on a flower of whiskey

I climb out of bed, listen
to you digging a cold space
under the crows and cities of corn,

apartment-fields out past the windy clothesline

where my mother’s albino
nightgown is lurking.

Osiris 68, 2009

NORDWEST:
ins Restweiß
gefetzte Blauscher.

Hangab,
zusammengezogen,
wankts breit schattend.

Die eingestrichen,
läßt dieses
zur Tusche kommen . . .

Osiris 50, 2000

TOURBIÈRES

Les allées du vent aux dalles de bruyère 
À Frau de Vial
Dans les tourbières
De grands pins sont couchés
Et leur mort a laissé dans l’air
Un parfum de résine
Les tourbillons rageurs malmènent la hêtraie 
C’est là que sans faillir croît la gentiane bleue.

Osiris 70

Toute approche

du sublime

rappelle à chacun

le devoir d’aimer

dans le proche et le lointain

là où se profile l’ombre pérenne

du désir partagé

alors que dans le ciel

sous la grande arche s’improvisent

les destins

OSIRIS 74

When Birds Were Saints on Cruachán Aigli

The eagles have gone by way of the west

in the rush of the sea and birds flit stir 

occasionally landing on the stack’s steep crown

where pilgrims yearly climb in adoration

And here the fog caught me in its deep wakeful sleep

closed in around me like the clouds of heaven

from some children’s story of golden streets

and pillowy white avenues of cotton but

not before I caught a glimpse of the eagle

its shadowy image on the pallet of white

flying overhead calling out the magi’s names 

the ones who had disappeared with the Cross

A skeptic myself I squatted in the fog

and drank from a plastic hipflask of clear water

not blessed or even drawn from a holy Celtic well

but carried up hours of rough track to the summit 

drank and refreshed myself in the white silence

close to the sky but without a clear view

and I heard the magi call and the anchors 

of the earth drag along through the lost names

as through all the gods were gathering again

on the eagle’s strong wings