Jürgen Theobaldy
 

The head thrown back

Plains - and out of their depth, the  leaves are breathing. 
I've spent the day by the river 
and that's why you didn't reach me. 
Floating across my forehead, 
the feather of a snow-covered angel 
who didn't find his deceased 
and therefore drifts quietly out of the glacier valley. 

The sky cannot be seen through 
even though the blue of it denies nothing to my gaze. 
And the river runs on and on, 
caught in its unimaginable green. 
When the locks are opened, 
the Aare will again be cold as May 
when once more meltwater was rushing from the mountains. 

If  it's only long enough that we are quiet, 
we begin to feel 
the quietness warm our thoughts. 
We help them out of their sweater, 
leave the cups where they are 
and wait outside for the first star. 

Patiently you look upward. 
You see it before it appears. 
You're right, this is impossible. 
But the universe is greeting us now 
with a small selection of arc lamps. 

Just to know that this too isn't true 
and to return the hello; at our feet 
the scorched elder bush. 
Slipping through the fingers 
that are touching each other, fables get lost. 

What do we risk after all 
that sublimely, on the balcony? 
The departure into the night, coughing, 
sighing, awaking with a start out of the dream 
which wafts across us 
like a curtain across our sleep. 
 
 
 
 
 

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