between my deaths
moments in dreams realm
life upon life upon life
warm evenings with good companions
let the wine flow
let the smoke drift from our lips
let wounds be healed
let oblivion be negated
even sleep brings its best wishes
tumbledown houses in summer fields
the cuckoo calls in saxony
i must wander hither
yes this holy land of allemagne
her lovely forests
where there lies no danger to man
no crawling snake or angry beast
her lovely forests in summer which overcome me
her trees so full of spirit
her blue skies so gentle to the eyes
her memories of snow and ice
her castles and her rivers
her deep valleys so green and peaceful
i am a minstrel
i am a merchant
i am a man-at-arms
i am a bohemian master who paints the lord in gold
i am an old man begging outside the kunsthalle in koln
i am a woman gathering potent herbs in the moonlight
i am dr johannes cuspinian with my red book of spells
i am a man who works in the orchards
i am a student from berlin
i am a swan in an ancient lake
i am stefan zeitmann a travelling magus
i am gertrude weiss the jugglers wife
i am an owl in a barn
i am a deer in a hazy field
i am a bird in a sleepy copse
i am a fool for my lady’s love in the springtime
and we rove through the mossy glades and
carve our one thousand names in the white trees there
we drink red beer and eat black bread
we row a boat across the quiet waters at night
when the graves give up their ghosts
we see the heroes of old …siegfried and others
fafnir whispers the windless dark
july is a feast under the stars
our friends from the villages drunk and merry
this is real life, my comrades
drink to the distant moon
drink to love and its many songs
drink to the forest with its dreaming trees
drink to the river and its silver fish
drink to the roses in grandmas garden
drink to the wild raspberries in the hedge
i am a boatman on the rhine
i am a fieldmouse nibbling the corn
i am a dancer round a fire on a hill
i am the sound of a drum
strange towers on craggy peaks containing scholars
they trace the comets arc
they dabble in alchemy
they predict the weathers moods
they eat yellow cheese and drink purple wine
they wear robes and gowns
they animate a homunculus
they resurrected a hare from death
and translate arabic texts concerning sexual pleasure
the servants boy plays in the long corridors
he listens at doors as darkness falls
he hears the laughter and arguments
the lovers lie entwined in soft beds
they coo and sigh in loves delicious play
they speak soft winged words of delight
and children are conceived with golden hair and brown eyes
the lovers in the cities by candlelight
the lovers in the country by moonlight
the old ladies packing up their market stalls in the square
the inn bursting with workers who just got paid
the lovely and serene night walks abroad
my germany is content
all the wars are over
the king is kind and just
ruling in Christs name but remembering the old ways
the queen is beautiful and generous
she glides through the forests on evenings like these
she drifts through the glades in her raptured fog
she swims in the black lake naked and unattended
her husband watches unseen from the trees
watches her whiteness disappear under the surface
watches her loll on the still warm rocks
watches her move in her trance
watches the ripples race away from her feet
watches the water run down her back
watches the moonlight in her eyes
watches the clouds and the moons pink aureole
watches the cygnets sleeping in the reeds
watches the oak shiver within the acorn
watches the sunlight in the sap
watches the trout leap in the twilight
so sleep now
so sleep and dream of my germany
hidden in warm memory
softly packed in some longago summer
safely stored in my soul forever