[Translations by James Reidel.]
 
 

Schuld

Meine kleine Schwester sagte zu mir: Wir wollen spazieren gehn.
Sie freute sich so ihrer hübschen neuen Haube. Ich ließ sie stehn
Lief mit dem frechen Haufen, lärmte und vergaß,
Daß mich erstaunt ein großer Blick und schmerzlich maß.

Mein kleiner verhungerter Freund sprach: Nimm mich mit!
Ich aber führte ihn zu weiß und goldenem Tisch.
Er bebte unterm Schwärm von Stimmen, aß nicht Speise, trank nicht Wein,
Sank—am Ufer schwätzten Reiche—elend in sein Salzmeer ein.

Alle Gründe, alle Sümpfe hinter mir sind meiner Opfer voll.
Aufging in Flur und Straß kein Schritt, der mir nicht Vorwurf scholl.
Voll böser Lust schlug ich einen Hund. Nun hängt sein Aug unter meinem Lid.
In meiner Lade modern Briefe, die kein Rächer sieht.

O Wintersterne über mir, Gestirne meiner Schuld!
O über dem Gewehe Augen ohne Gnade. Haß und Huld!
O meiner Schwester Schmerzensblick, den Gott nicht aus den Räumen rafft.
Denn N i c h t s w i r d w i e d e r g u t heißt der Polarstern mit dem Namen tiefer Wissenschaft!
 
  

Guilt

My little sister said to me: Let’s both of us go for a walk.
She took such joy in her pretty new hat. I left her standing
To run with this brazen bunch, shouting and forgetting,
As her wide eyes surprised and measured me painfully.

My little famished friend spoke: Take me with you!
But I steered him on to a white and gilded table.
He shook amid the swarm of voices, ate no food, drank no wine,
Sank—at the shore of the chattering rich—miserable in his salt sea.

All the depths, all the morass behind me is filled with my victims.
Not one step up the hallway and street did not echo with reproach.
Full of sick pleasure I beat a dog. Now his eyes droop under my lids.
In my drawer moldering letters that no nemesis sees.

O winter stars above me, luminaries of my guilt!
O eyes without mercy above the hurt. Hate and grace!
O my sister’s look of pain that God did not reap from these reaches.
Because Nothing-makes-it-right is the name the North Star calls deeper wisdom.
 
 

Der Kinderanzug

Mein alter Matrosenanzug! In dem ich noch farbige Spielkugeln fand.
Wie erinnert sich in deinen kindlichen Taschen meine Hand!

Bröseln von Frühstücksbroten, ein kleiner Hufeisenmagnet,
Ein Notizbuch, in dem »Verzeichnis von Lehrern und Mitschülern« steht.

Ich weiß: im Vorderhof stand eine Pumpe ganz in Stroh,
Da waren wir in der Zehnuhrpause froh.

Kruzifix, Kaiserbild, Tafel, Schwamm, Kreide und Stab,
Und die liebe grüne Bank, in die ich ein Loch geschnitten hab’.

Nachmittag um vier Uhr, wie liefen wir aus dem freundlichen Haus
Mit dem Fußball in die braunen zertretenen Wiesen hinaus.

Und es war stark und roh und reißend und toll,
Niemals mehr atmete ich so lange und voll.

Eins fällt mir ein: oft schaut’ ich gebückt durch die Beine, wie durch ein Tor,
Und Sonne, Erde und Himmel kamen mir anders und fremder vor.
 
 

Children’s Attire

My old sailor suit! In which I still found colored marbles.
How I remember my hands inside your childish pockets!

Crumbs from my breakfast buns, a little horseshoe magnet,
A notebook in which it says “Directory of Teachers and Students.”

I remember: in the front yard there stood a pump entirely wrapped in straw,
There we were happy during the ten o’clock recess.

A crucifix, the emperor’s portrait, a blackboard, eraser, chalk, and pointer stick,
And that beloved green desk in which I carved a hole.

In the afternoon, around four o’clock, how we ran from that friendful building
With the football into the brown, trampled meadow.

And it was violent and rough and fast-paced and wild,
Never again will I breathe so deep and full.

One thing comes to mind: how often I looked bent over, through my legs, as though through a gateway,
And sun, earth and sky struck me different and strange.
 
 
 

Note

Line 1, sailor suit (Matrosenanzug), both boys and girls during the 1890s and early 1900s wore clothes inspired by naval uniforms; line 5, stood a water pump entirely wrapped in straw (stand eine Pumpe ganz in Stroh), Werfel’s memory here is of winter, when straw was once used to insulate water pumps against freezing. In a 1925 children’s anthology, there is a curious typographical error—or intentional variation—where Pumpe is spelled Puppe (doll), suggesting the figure of the baby Jesus in a crèche.
 
 
 
Franz Werfel (1890–1945) is best known for his novels, such as The Song of Bernadette and The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, which was republished by Verba Mundi in an expanded English translation. Werfel began his career as an Expressionist poet and remained one until the end of his life, when he died at his desk while working on a new book of verse. His poetry has enjoyed a revival interest in Europe, especially among younger literary scholars.
 
 
James Reidel has published poems in many journals as well as Jim’s Book (Black Lawrence Press, 2014) and My Window Seat for Arlena Twigg (Black Lawrence, 2006). Recent work has appeared in Poetry, Harper’s, and Hawai’i Review. He is also the biographer of the poet Weldon Kees and a translator who has published works by Thomas Bernhard, Georg Trakl, Franz Werfel, and Robert Walser. He is currently working on a collection of prose poems. In 2013, he was a James Merrill House fellow.