WEBVTT

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Now I will switch to
the poems in the book.

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The book was translated
by Renata Gorczynska

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with the help of Robert Hass.

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I always say she needs
help because she's not

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a native speaker of English,
and me neither, as you know.

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I'll start with "Late
Beethoven" for Carolyn Kizer

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who asked me to read it.

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"Late Beethoven."

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"I haven't yet known a man who
loved virtue as strongly as one

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loves beauty."

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Confucius.

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Nobody knows who she was,
the immortal beloved.

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Apart from that,
everything is clear.

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Feathery notes rest peacefully
on the threads of the staff

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like martins just come
from the Atlantic.

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What would I have to be in
order to speak about him,

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he who is still growing?

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Now we are walking along
without ghosts or banners.

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Long live carols say
our solitary mouth.

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We know that he
dressed carelessly,

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that he was given
to fits of avarice.

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That he wasn't always
fair to his friends.

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Friends are hundreds years late
with their impeccable smiles.

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Who was the immortal beloved?

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Certainly he loved
virtue more than beauty.

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But the nameless god of
beauty dwelled in him

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and compelled his obedience.

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He improvised for hours.

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A few minutes of each
improvisation were noted down.

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This minute belonged
neither to the 19th nor

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to the 20th century,
as if hydrochloric acid

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burned a window in
velvet, thus opening

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a passage to even smoother
velvet, thin as a spiderweb.

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Now they name ships
and perfumes after him.

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They don't know who the
immortal beloved was,

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otherwise new cities and
pâtés would bear her name.

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But it's useless-- only
velvet growing under velvet

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like a leaf hidden
safely in another leaf.

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Light and darkness,
and ending adagios--

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that's how tired
freedom, breathless.

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Biographers argue
only over details.

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While he tormented his
nephew, Karl, so much?

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Why he walked so fast?

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Why he didn't go to London?

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Apart from that,
everything is clear.

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We don't know what music
is, who speaks in it,

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to whom it is addressed.

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Why it is so obstinately silent?

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Why it circles and
returns instead

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of giving a straight answer
as the gospel demands.

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Prophecies were not fulfilled.

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The Chinese did not
reach the Rhine.

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Once more, it turned out
that the real world does not

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exist to the immense
relief of antiquaries.

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This secret was
hidden somewhere else,

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not in soldiers' knapsacks,
but in a few notebooks.

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Grillparzer, he, Chopin.

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Generals are cast in
lead and in tinsel

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to give Hell's flame
a moment of respite

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after kilowatts of straw.

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And ending adagios, but
first and foremost, joy.

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Wild joy of shape, the
laughing sister of death.

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