' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' Die Wandlung(The Transformation) - For Onelia

DIE WANDLUNG (THE TRANSFORMATION) In this house where I a child grew snow has entered drifts where I have dreamed plays inside(where once I watched it fall outside) in wonder. * ICH WEISS...ICH WEISS! (I KNOW...I KNOW!) Snow climbs the stair where once I had head over heels charged down to see it begged like the child I was then to go outside...inside...now. * DU BLEIBT...DU BLEIBT! (YOU REMAIN...YOU REMAIN!) Snow eager to see me after such long ago roams through room after room...mindless now of time it human now...I...the falling. * DER HIMMEL HINABSTEIGT (THE SKY DESCENDS) I watch Time grow old see it fail to remembeer what it should remem... this house & I falling through its fingers...lettting us go! * AUFGABE (RELINQUISHMENT) Language strolling down memory lane...picking its fruit laughter & sadness growing from the same branches tasting now bitter...now...sweet. * WELCH EIN SPIEL (WHAT A GAME!) All my life I've been saying 'NO! ' to YES & 'YES! ' to NO...knowing I know nothing of everything I should know...could know...but...don't. ******* This is a strange sequence of tanka...written in Italian sunshine about Irish snow of long ago. I returned to the house of my childhood to find it a ruin...a shell of time and memory...snow had invaded the room where long ago I had encountered it for the first time...only now it stood where I once stood and I stood outside looking in at it. We had exchange places. Sweat stung my eyes and on an horizon Capri blinked in the distance...shimmered...as my eyes turned towards inward snow. I was supposed to send you postcards and had planned to do a whole sequence but the post office was a mile walk away in extreme heat so I stayed put. I wrote you the poems...and some got sent to you...this sequence languished torn and forgotten until rescued by me from their papery demise. You have them now for what...they are...worth.