Care leaves and that
broken as with
ringing autumn
falling it stirs

Nuts whisperings
breathe and fragrant
float with midges
strands like hair

That sweet they lie
or lamenting rustles
the swirling
leaf-escort

It was and healing
I heard the trickle
stems that tumble
on damp grass

 

***

The fervent or seeing
the branches bend and
warmer still or breaking
heavy with fruit what
tender along the leaves
and lost lies shining

For lonely and mild close
it was said to last light
sinks haloed by voices
the head the hand it
was I called you and
stillness the autumn light

Your park your bench
with chirping chestnuts
falling splitting open on the
gravel sand I saw your
foot a feather almost white
see-saw down and rest

 

***

Again still once and gravel
with leaves the lighter
ones and tips or midges
reeling rising touched:

They were days lonely plane
you called it home and bare
stood the tables the chairs in the
warm scent of the late grass

Kids' grass soup you said the
cock crowed a smile mute
sore a little dusty pale light
bulbs swung between the branches

We stayed drank cider close
fell the shadows the dew lay and
gleaming on the trunks the
sun as if in the high branches still

Birdgrass pinkish by the gravel the
evening resonant was a far
bird calling then a second and
death rose chirring from the levee

 

***

Rows trees slopes their
radiance as colouring
leaves softly stirred
by a wind from afar

Railings warm the flow
a faltering still foliage
surrounded by as if
the rites of autumn

Crowns full and pears
lying split open wasps
pale smoke drifts
through the branches

Rises and clusters berries
bow when cooler
shadowy evening
falls on the gardens

And troubled the twigs
beat against the wall
laughing a voice
calls counting rhymes

 

***

Edge of the bushes words
assuring paths with wet and
leaves Hungarian with
autumn as blackening as
wood bark trunk branch

Miraculous hovering it
lay in puddles and set for the
fest as a lost land gleaming
was wall staff pennant

Geraniums dishevelment
the gaze the blossoms urged
to climb so they might sway
or fall naked with ankles
hips welts and red

Careful it called being late
a garden glittering as
native listing with treetops
that rush soft with roots

***

The landscape all about as
something fleeting or seeing as
stretching out all the way from
the hills draped in cloud

Earth in footprints the paths
miry spoilt and
unfrequented no coat
heavy as if bent over

Roe-deer stubble pale
and fields hedges along
this half in October of life
its name the forest close

No beast towing the meadow
as a border colonized and the
embankment sunk in shadow
hunter's hide anger-tended

Evening there were bells
gates and gables plums
lying thick in the drain
their sweet ferment rising

***

Clouds scudding nightly
close it was and pink the
town skywards and
talk was bread and tar was
wine tar and fish we

Broke ate then warbled the
blackbird and called the bare
branches black and wind
garden fenced in rows
of lights boxes heavy

Stood the walls paths
gravel and torrential leaves
in swarms and eyes drank in
its joinings the pavement's
heels and delicate as ankles

A smiling here flurry of
shreds lines mossy cracks
brushwood a faltering
still whispered greetings
a-tremble in the tall grass

Good damp loam and
hushed as with a finger or swaying
with buds branches said I
where loving one are you we
were fields winter corn

***

There is was the wood and
rotting in the snow the leaf
mould slept crushed withered
herbs twigs stuck out the
brambles thick and tangled

Puddles the ice cracked
milky and hard-frozen the
mud the tracks apples in the
grass tears and mould the
sun deep in over the field

Return away from the village the
frost bright and rimy on the
wire the silvering silence sung
was crows the drumming and
hooves heaps of cut branches

Beds beets and reeds the
shingle grey the bend as the
place close to the dyke
loose soft are the shadows and
twigs the elders touched

***

Fruit trees pale the slope and hard the
dark bough-work gently veiled the
willows by the burn and whitethorn blossoming
hedges the gardens fringed deep yellow with
forsythia the squares the pasture it has come

To an end early bright spring and the pale
first green of the grass with arms again
full warm and cool and sweeter they said
with the breeze was the scent of the earth dug
over densely burgeoning tentative its onset

A wafting ending in tips or a drifting as
evening as a space bushes lonely and
radiant with villages walls inward
smouldering and tree-trunks stripped in
piles resting now and close as night

***

Rites of the evening glen
path and violence the eyes
burst open buds we said
look and the sky glowed
the mountains attuned

From over the river the
traffic flowing water the
stones ti penso and always
with pebbles brushwood
leaves I've thought of you

Warming levee coltsfoot
you wept your hands
sank tired and fleeting
shadows bare brushed
the asphalt with their lips

Jabbering up flew a blackbird
called whistling warbling
jubilant with pauses and now
comes known as a dwindling
ribbons rippling wires the path

***

Fruit tree blossom between bushes
walls in rows and fields with
gardens sheds birches unending
passage clouds and leaves there
were villages hours names

Arrived and there mossy dark with
soot was sweat and sleep and stood
as one who stands by his bag in the
dust there was humming a few
birds singing something forlorn which

Word I asked would be the first
here or smoking looked and
along the main street where no
person was only flowers in
the gravel swayed troubled from

Afar by knowing bricks lost land
it was I belonged to the lost land the
morning fringing with grasses the
beds which lay there broken up
grown over with vetch wreathed

 

Translation copyright © Iain Galbraith, 2003

Original text copyright © Urs Engeler Editor, Basel, 2001.