342

Let the redbud tree shiver
And the rain break
Across each segment of its
Outheld, meagre branches.

At each junction, let leaves
Rise out of bunches of its
Flowers, loose crowns of
Yellowed green and peach,

Singular leaves swaying
As drops of rain batter
Them : each, depositing
A small part of its mass,

Let catch the light.
Let the redbud tree watch
In its passive colours,
Let no silence master the

Water in its course.
Afford the cardinals their
Voice, that the air should
Bear their keener sound.

O light the day in such
Elements—until it should
Fail—wherein, let darker
And subtler shapes be found.

341

Peter Altenberg, 1909

His moustaches are the shape and colour
Of a tarnished sickle. Soft stains indeed!
There is one in black at his upper lip, of
Which the edges trail the cramped air,
Bristles of frayed wire spraying from a
Sleeve of jaundiced flesh. His mouth is
Barely visible beneath, a fat grub's smart
Orifice. He holds it closed, melancholic.
His neck the watery red of rare beefsteak,
And at its upper boundary a crimson ear,
Full in its broken bloom, and the slight
Outline of his remaining hair. A majority
Of his skull is hairless, and yet it seems
Striated as a rough opening in a facade
Of sedimentary rock, each colour gentle
In its own kind. He would reach into
The air before him—are his malformed
Hands articulate, or simply for show?
How will we know when he begins to act,
Or when his true expression will occur?
His rueful eyes pronounce nothingness.

340

Nirvana, 1890

Brother Jacob, the wall is falling.
No lesser spirits will pass through.

Breakers form in the dark green
Water, where it gathers overhead.

Is it a wave? It would seem the sea
Bore up into the heavens, and all

Its swell communed with the stars :
Are those fireflies glimmering

Behind its curtain, or the heads of
Flowering grasses? Perhaps yet

It is only a green evening sky, and
The breakers fine heads of cloud,

Stained blue in their departure.
O Jacob, what black smoke is it

Pours from your back, in which
Nereids twist, pale as corpses?

Your face seems to light red where
Their hair flames. Your hand held

Before you as if to make a sign.
O, you are devilfish, with your

Feline eyes of empty periwinkle!
Speak now, for the wall is falling.

339

As Redon's Ophelia danced in her flowers
Of yellow and white and red and blue,
As they swam about her, avatars of her
Fallen spirit, as she made her beauty of
Their briefest sounds, speaking words to
Them, seeming lost in their movement—
So too, you move, you smile, you curl
Your aged lip over your lower teeth, coy,
Graceful, holding a bright glass of white
Wine in your left hand, so that the light
Passes in the passing of the music through.
Your crown of blooms wobbles as you
Come forward into the dining room, as
You heave your broad shoulders beneath
A shapeless robe of linen. Ah, your white
Teeth and cavernous eyes! Harmon waits
To slowdance you, to cajole you, to draw
The love out of you—go to him!—be sure
Your perfume makes just as much a fool
Of him as you. Dance alone now, before
The lilies and the tungsten lamp and the
Blurred glow of the far city, in which you
Hold no greater part than does the music,
Than do the stars—let us sit down here like
Ladies and gentlemen, he says hoarsely,
Laughing in his quality of hopelessness
Through the clarity of his drink obscured.

338

Plans par couleurs, 1910-11

There is a light au fond
As of an evening growing
To its maturity : a golden,
Indiscriminate light, dull

In its subtle graduations.
The windowframe seems
To multiply where the air
Passes it, as in a relaxation

Of the eye further images
May slide beyond the sure
Original. In such manifold
Iterations, the dark figure

Of a woman comes before
The light, breaking it into
Lesser shades. A shaft of
Sulphate blue hangs like

A banner from her arm ;
At her crown great curves
Of pale green, bands of a
Heavy russet at the border

Of her corsage. Ghostlike
Colours play restlessly
Across her face. No other
Expression forms there

Than what the light gives :
All that she communicates
Lies in the way she bends
Her soft hand into her hip.

337

The tree is a great wall of movement,
A facade of which the new leaves
Blow fluidly out upon stemlike joists,
Twisting limply in unfinished arcs,
Then fall as the wind falls, shying
Down, become flaccid membranes,
Flags of uniform colour, sans motif,
Save their fine, pale green ribs—lines
That hold fast only as they are pliant.
Light strikes the tree from the west—
Late afternoon. The crown of it is as
The surface of a restless sea that in its
Eternal movement bears out patterns :
The foremost branches will decline ;
Those at the base sway in melancholy ;
From the centre, unawaited changes
May originate ; all may founder, softly.
What are we to name this creature,
That meditates so upon its own energy?
Birds part from it, as from a reef,
Drawing colour out of its broken shade.

336

        Erwachte er,
        Wär's doch nur
        Um für immer zu verscheiden

His body lies pale before a wall
In a landscape desolate of all
Its proudest heritage. The blood
Of his ancestors, that now would
Founder in his fragility, is blent
Out across his shirt. His spent
Breath still moves upon the air :
His eyes fasten outward, there,
Upon the discoloured and bare
Soil, or there, on a further space
That dark figures seem to pace,
As he figures them before him,
His most loved Väter, grown dim.

Now the stream of his being gives
Its light out gently into the grasses.
As he watches the light he yet lives,
Held in it, until its music passes.

335

There is a white Mercedes
Before the house, white in
An absolute sense : colour
Is absent from the fenders,
From the mirrors, from the
Empty headlights. Only in
The indicators and in the
Headlights can colour be
Found: pale orange and a
Dark, dark red. Light rain
Washes its bright surfaces.
At one side, by a forward
Wheel, a panel has been
Removed, and under it the
Metalwork is of the same
Resonant shade. Behind it,
A crepe myrtle bush, full
Of violet flower that seem
To dust the rolling surface
Of its leaves. The flowers
Irrupt the washing air. Out
Of the distance sheets of
Dull thunder ply themselves :
A crow falls slowly across
The long roof and yellow
Clapboard front of the house.

334

From a small, shaded chandelier above
The kitchen table, a pearly sphere of
Ruffled tissue hangs, shadowed in its
Dark recesses, bleached at the ridges
Where it is fragile, pliant—a stemless
Rose, suspended from a chain of string.
He stares before him at the table and
Its small objects, leaning upon it with
His elbow and forearm. His front is an
Expanse of plaid, one shoulder half lit
From the window, the other sloping in
Weak shadow. He seems to hold back
A minor discomfort, resting a hand on
His knee. His head doubles the balled
Tissue : it is a soft orb of light, darker
Recesses below the brow and nose, at
His front great gentle curves—fissures
Only faint, and absent in their faintness.
He is crowned in delicate grey. As he
Watches before him, the light seems
To move in concert, holding him still.

333

Birds pass bodily through the tree,
Through the scattered halo of light
Green, their wings tilting to direct
Them through its shaded corridors,
And out, into the restless evening
Air, where the sound of an engine,
Miles distant, drones like a scoured
Bowl. It is an aircraft—a glimmer
Of white, its fuselage coloured in
Places, blue and red, the figure of
A distant speed and force, bearing
Itself up through the branches, as
A gull hovers almost motionless
In its gentle height. Untouchable,
As if illustrated in minute ébauche
On an overbright background, it 
Shimmers and vacillates, broken
In its image by the interceding gas
And heat, as stars may be known
Only by the tardif light that they
Bestow. The vast attelage lifts out
Of all the dull frame that surrounds,
Breaks the green corona it had
Travelled slowly through, warping
Into the open air of evening, bulk
And impetus bent towards its far
End. Its sound seems to die, and in
Dying invest the air with melodies :
That we are left to speak among us,
Each of us held in what he had seen.