Measure For Measure, March 2014

Morning

By Friedrich Hölderlin, Translated from the German by Torsten Odland

Dew glints in the grass, as

the waking source begins to rustle;

the beeches tilt their heads; a wind

blows through the shaking, gleaming leaves,

and over there, flames strip through the gray of the clouds;

it surges, this proclamation, in the air

as a flood rolls across a shoreline,

rolling higher and higher, the rivulets.

Come, and come quick, but don’t rush away from me,

you golden day; don’t hurry to the sky’s summit;

my eyes will fly open in faith

to you, so long as you shine in

heaven with such childish beauty, so long

as I make you not haughty, but proud;

if you wanted always to rush,

heavenly wanderer, with you I could!—Of course,

you smile at the overexcitement: that he

would like to be the same as you. Please then, bless

my human doings, you kind one;

grant me, please, a quiet path today.

The Dream

By Madeline Pages

We put ourselves to bed

With hot tea and whiskey,

To the lullaby of that nasal voice

Which narrates the city

In the apartment

With Kerouac and Vonnegut on the walls

And a quintessential still life at the table,

Only empty bottles and a salt shaker,

I was pure ash-white in the dark

I was all burnt on the surface

One layer beyond, however

Was the cold ember of summer

Passed on.

All the people packed around me on the train

Are dancers

The strangers under my window

Sing opera

Everyone is a costume

Everything is a meal.