Three Witnesses

O the moon-days of winter! Snow has fallen. You leave after midnight, having drunk crimson wine, the dim precincts of men. The red flame of their hearth briefly lights the snowy path you tread alone. Georg Trakl O clear winter night! A red deer steps out of the forest. She stands in a pool of blue light and watches the lake freeze. The golden angel of the western sky beats her vast wings slowly. Her crystal tears fall into the same lake the deer watches. I arrive at the lake shore. I take my place under the yellow moon between these fellow creatures, one of the land, the other of the sky, myself displaced, at home in neither place, seeking always somewhere to be. The angel folds her mighty wings. She bows her head, and the perfect calm of her face fills me with awe. The deer turns her head, she slowly bites a leaf from an ash and chews it deliberately. The moonlight is like a tent which encloses us in a rough triangle. Above me the angel hovers over the freezing lake. Beside me the deer stands at the water's edge. Here will I wait as long as the deer and the angel.