The Text of the Bird

For Stefan Schwerdtfeger

Across the sky as once always the strokes frozen in-

to white, far behind that the tones.

The earth, final area of affliction, bed of ash sewn with

blue

and gray, from which now

singly and sometimes bundled by the wind

the remaining feathers rise, gather together above

the urgent solitude of the feet in iron, in

the book of lava, unread, traces swim past. So

life goes. Quicksand comes with the oilfish in

the sky into the picture, beyond that the coasts of

Palestine,

Africa's fresh graves. Skies standing

on their heads. Very singly and sometimes

bundled the feathers

above the area, immersed writing,

signpost for this old blind flight. The text of

the bird is ahead of my text, just

a little bit, couple lengths

of an eye.

Translated by Andrew Shields