Comment étrange! Au coin de la rue l'homme à côté de moi demandé: "Vous aimez l'art ?" Sans pensée j'ai dit: "Oui, j'aime l'art." Il pleuvait, mais il a révélé une pile de cartes avec les lignes colorées et les fioritures. "Prenez celui. Il ne coûte rien. Seulement un sourire." J'ai pris une avec des lignes vertes et j'ai dit: "Merci."

Est-ce que c'était l'homme que j'ai rencontré il y a des années à Halifax?

you -- i wish i could write a novel
or someone else
with you as a character,
a fleeting, minor one
in your bowler hat
leather shoes with upturned toes
fliegende Krawatte à la Schnitzlers Künstler
oddly picturesque
a revenant

paean

Your corona hovered above the furnace
the night we never slept
Ein Siegeskranz
Its gleam unlike before --
as a child, you held it when you wept.

We wavered in our praise of rags
holding the wine aloft
mulberry red
dear to our thirsting hearts
we bled, just as we drank the dregs.

Meine blaue Blume,
why have I not seen you for so long?
Where did the petals fall?
Did you sleep at all
in the chilly arms of history?

Driven forth, driven forth,
how then you fell asleep alone,
my locket at your throat,
your last hand-written note
by me at matins when we sang.

The water in the River has been ferocious,
the surface shifting with a new madness.
The first snows of the season
have fallen and melted away.
More rain, more snow,
and the River broadens like a god,
full, drunk from the heavens' libations.
For what did the sky pray,
that so much rain and snow
should plunge into the water to disappear?

The familiar, indecipherable string of words again this morning, like every morning. Johannes spoke in a way few people do -- the words themselves had been disconnected from the meanings we tend to attach to them, for the most part, and "Did you check the mailbox" may come out of the nowhere, while "is you ginger hair new" has no obvious correspondence to reality. But that is irrelevant.

Johannes smiled when he spoke, and one could tell more from his expression and hand gestures than the everyday phrases or unexpected comments where he was. He insists on this exchange, and probably enjoys it. Sometimes the words are muffled, but a smile and neutral remark in return might be enough to give the illusion of verbal conversation, which really just hangs over the more important dialogue -- the joy of human community, something about which he is eloquent.

'I wanted to tell you several things.'
'What? I'm listening.'
'It was all so long ago I wanted to say them, I forgot. You know, I sometimes ask myself, when I'm doing something completely mundane: will I remember this? Asking myself this question, I always think I will. Nine times out of ten I don't. But sometimes flashes come back unexpectedly. Maybe I'll remember what I wanted to say a decade from now.'

Wir warten auf den Bus, jeder Einzelne, denn es gibt anscheinend nichts anderes zu tun, auch wenn wir wissen, es kommt keiner. Einer zündet eine Zigarette an, als ob er glauben wollte: Es kommt immer Eine, aufgerufen von Feuer und Licht. Aber sie brennt, wie des Menschen Seele, ab.