Autumn in Brunswick

 Yin and Yang. The black bluestone blocks of the kerb and the paperthin leaves coming to rest, piling up in ever shifting mounds on the streetside. The blocks hewn once and for all from deep gorges in the ground along the banks of Merri Creek, the leaves only one season old and already cast adrift.

This afternoon the radio played “Autumn Leaves” sung by Nat King Cole. As I drove home I thought of songs and poetry inspired by autumn. Although yesterday was the first of May , when spring explodes in Europe (Karel Hynek Macha’s famous lines always linger in my mind when this day comes along or when I hear the date said: Byl prvni Maj, byl lasky cas –the first of May, the time of love… ), here in the southern hemisphere it is the time of the shortening days, the oblique rays, the melancholy shadows and timid light.

Even my students, compelled to learn poems about the heavy fruits, the dying leaves and the clattering of the flags, must have got an insight... perhaps.

“Mit gelben Birnen hänget / Und voll mit wilden Rosen / Das Land in den See….” (Full of wild roses and yellow pears, the land into the lake) soon changes into bitter cold: “Die Mauern stehn / Sprachlos und kalt, im Winde / Klirren die Fahnen”  (the walls stand speechless and cold, the flags clatter in the wind.) Hölderlin.

And Rilke’s lines are a description of the later years of life, the ones that I am living now:

“Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr. / Wer jetzt allein ist, wird es lange bleiben, / wird wachen, lesen. lange Briefe schreiben/ Und wird in den Alleen hin und her / Unruhig wandern, wenn die Blätter treiben.” (The one who has no house will now not build one, the one who is alone, will stay so for a long time, will lie awake, read, write long letters and restlessly roam the alleys where the leaves rush.)

So let me add my contribution to that vast collection, written a long time ago, in my springtime years. It has some meaning for me, and I hope you will like it too.

Herbstgedicht für Nina  (Tessin, 2. November 1976)

I came down to the river

And there you were:

Huddled in a rough wet coat

But your eyes filling the valley

With mist and hushing air.

The water washes you clean

Of the horrors of the night

As it streaming over strokes

The heads of stone.

You step and step

In the roaring silence.

Twigs held then scattered the rain

As they opened my way to the clearing.

All the trees of the mountains watched

As I touched your yellow hair.