Hohensalzburg

i should always have known, those who sang from the river,

those who moved to me, trembling, from the wood were the others..

when i crushed on a finger, with a finger, a petal of the blossom of the lime,

i understood..

(as i tasted, under the taste of the flower, the dark taste of the leaf,

the flesh that has never flowered)

all of the words of the wood but a final word..pure, yearning, unappeasable..

a word that went on forever,

like the roar the people of the bees made in the limes.

when they called from the rushes i heard you answer,

i am a dweller of the earth.

the old woman who sat beside her wheel in her cottage under the hill,

and gave you tea when the mist crept up around her, evenings,

and you came to her, slowly, out of the mist where you had run, all evening,

by the shore naked, searching for your dress up on the sand..

she would say to you, each evening

“what you do will do.. but not forever..

what you want is a husband and children."

and you would answer

they will do, but not forever.

the old woman, the stone maid sunk in the waters of the earth who murmured,

“you too are fair.. not as fair as i, but fair as i was fair.."

these said to you softly

“you are only a child, what would you be, if you could have your wish?

you are fair, child, as a child is fair.

how would you look, if you could have your wish?"

you answered

i would be invisible.

when i woke it was still night.

i saw, as i always saw, a castle rising above the limes..

a castle that has never been taken.

i felt in the mappocket of the skirt of my leather coat,

but mice had eaten the bar of chocolate, and left me foil like tinsel.

there was moonlight, at the path out into the wood,

a deer stood with stars in the branches of its antlers..

an iron deer. then there was nothing but night.

i felt at my hand for an instant, the wing of a swallow..

your hand opened across my hand. i reached to you, but you whispered..

only look.

i whispered..

“i see only moonlight."

i am here behind the moonlight.

you are there. i thought at first that you were only a ghost,

a ghost asleep in a castle that is asleep.

but these german ghosts, harsh clumsy things, haunt no one,

but only change men into things, things into things.

many a chandelier clouded with china roses,

many a swan floating beside its shepherd, among cresses,

many a star set in the antlers of an iron deer,

was once a sleeper wandering through the wood.

some walked through the pits of the glade to a ghost and were changed..

a ghost wants blood.. and it will do..

but not forever.

but i shall be with you here forever..

past the dust of thorns,

past the sleepers wound like worms in the terrible chains of their breath,

i shall lie in your arms forever..

if you sleep i shall sleep,

if you wake i will wake,

if you die i shall also die.

you said.. i am then not dead?

you are only sleeping..

when i come to you, sprawled there asleep at the center of all the webs,

at the final point of the world, one drop of your blood,

i shall bend to you slowly..

you are asleep, the leaves breathe with your breath..

the last, least stir of the air that stumbles through a fur of leaves

says the sound of your name,

over and over, over and over..

but someday.. years off, many and many years..

i shall come to you there asleep, i shall take you and..

tell me.

no, no i shall never.

tell me.

you must not know.

tell me.

i .. i shall kiss your throat.

my throat?

there, it is only a dream.

i shall not so.. i shall never so.

i saw in your eyes beside my eyes, a gaze pure, yearning, unappeasable..

your lips trembled, set for an instant in the slightest smile i ever saw..

your cold flesh, faint with starlight, wetted a little with the dew,

had, to my tongue, the bloom of fruit..

of the flower.. the lime tree flower.

and under the taste of the flower there was the taste of..

i felt in the middle of the circle of your mouth against my flesh something hard,

scraping gently, over and over against the skin of my throat.

i woke and fell asleep and woke..

your face above me glowed faintly now.. something light, a life pulsed there.

when i saw that it was my blood, i used my last strength,

and, slowly, slowly, opened my eyes and pushed my arms out,

that the moonlight pierced and held..

i said.. i want you

and the words were so heavy that they hung like darkness all over the world,

and you said to me, softly

you must not so.

i am only a girl.

before i was a ghost i was only a girl.

i said to you 'before i was a ghost i was only a..

a ghost wants blood..

when they find me, here except for my blood,

they will search for you all night..

harsh clumsy things in their tunics and leather shorts and pigtails.

all the badges along the bands of their hats will shine..

when all but one has said to you, gute nacht, and you have answered,

are almost free to call me there in the bonds of the moonlight,

the last will mutter cunningly, gruss gott.

then as all my blood flows from your limbs into your heart..

when, at the name of god, you can say nothing, o dweller of the earth..

you will cry out bitterly,

and they will seize you and bind you and boil you to death..

the dead also die..

there at the fountain of the square just under the castle, by the iron deer,

make of you a black pudding, deck it with schillings and thaler,

and serve it, all herrlich, to the man of the castle

with a sign stuck to it.. to eat is verboten.”

or so it went once.. i have forgotten.

what shall i call you, o being of the earth?

what i wish you to call me i shall never hear.

we shall change.. we shall change..

but at last, their stars,

we shall rest in the branches of the antlers of the iron deer.

but not forever..

many a star has fallen, many a ghost has met,

at the path to the wood,

a ghost that has changed at last, in love, to a ghost.

we should always have known.

in this wood, on this earth graves open,

the dead are wandering..

in the end we wake from everything.

except one word..

in the end one wakes from everything.

except one word goes on, always, under the years,

a word we have never understood..

and our life, our death, and what came past our life

are lost within that steady sound..

pure, yearning, unappeasable,

the one spell turns above us like the stars.

and yet surely, at the last, all these are one,

we also are forever one..

a dweller of the earth,

invisible.

randall jarrell