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THEY FLY NORTH
They fly north in spring
they build a house of song for themselves as they advance
along the coasts
in the shimmering inside it they move towards the summer.
In March when the expanses of ice are still there they arrive
in May when the birch trees lighten they continue
they transform the spring into a call
a carpet of greenery
they bring with them
and form their lives into garlands
and the silent shores wait for them
as if a longstanding agreement existed between them.
They seek no destination
born with it inside them, they follow a path before them
and the water becomes a well that sings.
How can long-tailed ducks be described?
They are blue mornings
where the sun melts in the sun.
The eiders in their heavy bright green
and the goldeneyes that weasel-quick hunt the water’s surface.
The long nights and their quiet sleep
the alertness that does not leave them even then
their fear
and the ramifications of the circulating blood
that gradually become a stiff tree
when shrivelled by hunger they await their arctic death.
The open waters that still linger.
Why be concerned with birds at the end of this century?
– For their nights are our nights
and we search an open expanse of water!
Because they constantly return,
they are put to flight – they return
that are tempted by what is treacherous and die in their thousands –
they return.
When do they rest? When do they fetch courage?
It is as if they flew straight through death –
against all prognoses. And the air itself bears them.
They come already at sunrise
it is then as if they try out their calls on the world
and as if nothing has existed before them
then their lives are completely improbable
and even when it is evening they bear new islands with them
and it is as if nothing had even begun.
They die as we do
and as we are their lives are frozen
their nests plundered.
But
it is not them that are flying there
it is an expectation that words still have doubts about
it is a wild circle of delight
and live dreams itself forward through it.
The bright patches on their wings
already their bear June in their wake
and the evenings that linger more and more,
now a fine net of song is stretched out over the water
and the hinterland birds meet them.
They know of no ending
since they did not know of any beginning.
They live in their wings.
That is why the life of birds affects us.
To see the poem in the original, go to here.
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