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Peter Filkins

DISMANTLING THE BIRCHES

  • 1 THE GLOBE | Translations: de
  • 2 MAN RUNNING | Translations: de
  • 3 MATA HARI MON AMOUR | Translations: de
  • 4 THE HUNTERS | Translations: de
  • 5 DISMANTLING THE BIRCHES | Translations: de
  • 6 AVALANCHE | Translations: de
  • 7 GENESIS | Translations: de
  • 8 BLIND LOVE | Translations: de
  • 9 AUGUSTINE’S VISION | Translations: de
  • 10 THE WILD BOAR | Translations: de
Language: english
Translations: german (DAS ENTFERNEN DER BIRKEN)
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DISMANTLING THE BIRCHES

for James Lasdun

“Topped, dropped & chipped 2 dead white birch trees”
reads the bill arriving one week later.
The damage? “Labor & Equipment – $250,”
though it’s no sure bargain: blithe empty air
now all that’s left of what once stood, who knows,
a lifetime? a century?, their tall, swaying might
reduced to firewood we’ll burn this winter.

Still, it was time. The birches too near the house,
one windy night a heavy limb broke loose,
waking us with a thunk so loud we thought
the end of sleep had come, our roof done in
and leaking through November’s bony cold
until next morning workers broke the news:
nothing for it, those trees were coming down.

Summer. Morning. A locust’s rising whine,
the day a promise caught in each chuckling leaf,
as a boy I loved their white thrusting shoots
rising like a massive V outside my window,
each trunk’s diameter twice my skinny arm across,
the scarred papery bark a sheet inscribed
with twists and leanings, weather written in.

How many summers had they seen? What kites
had disemboweled flight among their branches?
And who could know what kind of spell or luck
had let them grow so tall, lightning blasts
and blight, drought and winter gales, the gamut
of experience as like to strike them down
as nurture lasting reach into a pale blue sky.

I blink my eyes, but yes, they’re really gone,
leaving behind a golden sawdust sweet
with desolation, its smell the pungent tang
of a chainsaw gnawing wood, the acrid oily buzz
lopping off a branch as if dismembering a doll
naked with abuse, as the saw’s last throaty chug
digs and burrows, mad for the meaty girth.

Absence now becomes them, or at least
it must: sawdust, wood chips, and firewood
soon vanishing as well. Meanwhile, the view
has opened, and with it a landscape appears,
unseen before, yet obviously always there,
iron grey in autumn, a stillness loud with geese
on their necessary flight above the trees.

© Peter Filkins
From: unpublished
Audio production: 2005, M.Mechner / Literaturwerkstatt Berlin

Translations:

Language: german

DAS ENTFERNEN DER BIRKEN

Stutzen, Fällen, Zerhacken von zwei morschen Birken
steht auf der Rechnung, die eine Woche später eintrifft
Der Schaden? Arbeitsaufwand & Werkzeug - $ 250,
obwohl das kein Schnäppchen ist: muntere leere Luft
ist nun alles was blieb von dem, was da mal stand, wer weiß,
ein Jahrhundert oder Leben lang? Ihre hochschwankende Macht,
reduziert zu Feuerholz, in diesem Winter zu verbrennen.

Doch es war an der Zeit. Die Birken dem Haus zu nah,
in einer windigen Nacht brach ein schwerer Ast herab
weckte uns, mit einem Krach, so laut, dass wir dachten
das Ende des Schlafs sei gekommen, unser Dach kaputt
und hereingekrochen kam die knochige Novemberkälte
bis am nächsten Morgen Arbeiter die Neuigkeiten brachten:
Da hilft nichts, diese Bäume sind runtergekommen.

Sommer. Morgen. Das Loswimmern einer Heuschrecke,
der Tag ein Versprechen, in schmunzelndem Laub geborgen,
als Junge liebte ich ihre drängenden weißen Triebe,
wie sie sich als massives V vor meinem Fenster errichteten,
der Umfang jedes Stammes meine doppelte Ärmchenlänge,
die vernarbte, papierne Rinde, ein Bogen, eingeschrieben
sind Drehung und Neigung, vom Wetter beschriftet.

Wie viele Sommer haben sie gesehen? Welche Drachen
endeten den Flug, aufgeschlitzt zwischen ihren Zweigen?
Und wer konnte wissen, was für ein Fluch oder Glück
sie so groß hat wachsen lassen, Blitzschlag
und Brand, Dürre und Winterwinde, auf der Skala
der Erfahrung streckte es sie nieder, ebensogut
wie die stete Hege sie dehnte bis ins fahle Blau.

Ich blinzele mit den Augen, doch sie sind wirklich weg,
goldenes Sägemehl hinterlassend, das vor Zerstörung
süß ist, sein Geruch der stechende Nachgeschmack
einer Kettensäge beim Holzfraß, das ätzend ölige Summen
das den Ast stutzt, als zerstückelte man eine Puppe
entblößt im Missbrauch, als das letzte kehlige Knattern der Säge
sich eingräbt und wühlt, verrückt nach dem markigen Stamm.

Was sie waren, wird Abwesenheit, oder zumindest
gezwungenermaßen: Sägemehl, Holzspäne und Feuerholz
wird auch bald verschwunden sein. Indes hat sich die Sicht
geöffnet und mir ihr erscheint eine Landschaft
ungesehen zuvor, aber offensichtlich immer schon da.
Eisengrau im Herbst, eine Stille, durchlärmt von Gänsen
auf ihrem dringlichen Flug über die Bäume.

Aus dem amerikanischen Englisch übersetzt von Monika Rinck
previous poem
   (THE HUNTERS)
5 / 10
nächstes Gedicht
(AVALANCHE)   
listen to all poems

Peter Filkins

* 07.01.1958, United States
lives in: Great Barrington , United States

PETER FILKINS is the author of two books of poems, “What She Knew” (1998) and “After Homer” (2002).

The recipient of a Berlin Prize Fellowship in 2005 from The American Academy in Berlin, he is also the translator of Ingeborg Bachmann’s collected poems, “Darkness Spoken’”(2005), as well as her novels, “The Book of Franza” and “Requiem for Fanny Goldmann” (1999).

He has been awarded fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Yaddo, MacDowell, and the Millay Colony for the Arts. Previously he was also the recipient of a Fulbright grant to Austria and an Outstanding Translation Award from the American Literary Translators Association.

His work has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times Book Review, Poetry, Partisan Review, The New Republic, The American Scholar, and the Los Angeles Times Book Review.

Filkins teaches writing and literature at Simon’s Rock College in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

Publications
  • What she knew

    [poems]

    Alexandria, Virginia: Orchises Press, 1998

  • After Homer

    [poems]

    New York: George Braziller, 2002

Awards
  • Fulbright-Stipenium

  • Outstanding Translation Award

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