Winter Twilight

Translation of ‘Winterdämmerung’, a poem by Georg Trakl

Dedicated to Max von Esterle

 

Metallic black celestial sphere.

In the evenings, starved to madness,

Crows criss-cross storms’ redness,

Blown over parkland sad and bare.

 

In the clouds a light is frozen;

Each bird turns in circles then,

Fleeing from the curse of Satan,

Sevenfold in number they descend.

 

In sweet staleness of something rotten

They stab their beaks silently.

Nearby houses threaten mutely;

Lights up in the auditorium.

 

Church, bridge and hospital

Loom gruesome in the twilight glow.

Bloodstained bed linen blows

Like sails on the canal.

Image found on stillmoon.org