WEBVTT

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So as I told you,
he translated Trakl.

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Trakl was a poet who--

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well, he was a little bit
crazy like most of us poets,

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but he was made more insane
because he was a practicing

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chemist pharmacist.

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And he was put in charge
during the First World

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War of a medical tent, a sort
of makeshift medical hospital

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where there were 90
wounded soldiers,

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and he was given no
anesthesia and no medicines

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to take care of them.

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And it drove him mad.

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Daniel translated him, and
you'll hear a lot of Trakl

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in here.

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This is called "Elegy
for an Unknown Poet."

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Daniel was an unknown poet.

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It's a beautiful thing to be.

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He wouldn't send
his poems anywhere.

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He put them all in drawers.

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He would never let me
send them anywhere.

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He worked as a librarian at
the New York Public Library,

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and he lived alone and
wrote and translated.

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And he didn't care about
publishing and all of that,

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and I really honor him
for his purity, his soul,

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his devotion to his art.

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It had nothing to do with
anything that was going

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to happen in his lifetime.

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"You who are apart,
wanderer, stranger,

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who bent down in winter for
the lost glove of another,

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you are ein Fremder
on Earth as if you

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had been written toward us.

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Listen-- bells.

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You are sheltered once again
in the stillness of childhood,

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where the slow river
remains, rain singing

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from a gutter-spout, wet
bottles, misted grillwork.

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Apartness gathers
the music of solitude

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as if it were a glass viola.

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Bells ring that are and
are not, and the soul

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is left wandering
in the blue night.

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You are the one watching,
the one dreaming this,

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the homeless one left behind.

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The soul has departed,
thinking, alone

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with your thoughts, the
poverty of waking life,

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here where it nears the eternal.

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A man stood behind
you holding a knife.

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You walked into the lake until
only your hat could be seen.

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The dead began to wander
quietly in the hall of stars.

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Your sister took her
life, and then you

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couldn't bear the
gaze of others.

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What you could bear,
and for long hours,

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were the star-filled
eyes of a toad.

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I am your translator.

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Pity me.

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It is impossible
to slip ein Fremder

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into the mouth of another.

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Last summer, I went with
you to the crematorium.

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We said poems and covered your
body with gloves and roses.

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I know that you are dead.

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Why do you ask and
ask what can be done?

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Black is the color of footsteps,
frost, stillness, and tears.

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It modifies branches and wings.

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Blue appears as
cloud, flower, ice.

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Deer stepping from the
forest are also blue.

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A river is green,
but green as well

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are flecks of decomposition.

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Silver, the blossoming
poppies, a wind's voice,

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faces of the unborn,
death is their province.

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The living, you say,
appear unreal to you,

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as if they were on fire.

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Yet the living gaze at the
dead, imploring them to appear.

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Why?

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you ask.

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The dead do not understand this.

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The living are
oblivious to what they

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are, measuring time as a
flickering of day and night.

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Brown are the cesspools,
rafters, and shadows,

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golden the day, candles,
and a tent of stars,

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ivory the hands and
limbs of lovers,

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purple a night wind,
nostrils, and snails.

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A skiff is red, as
are wolf and wound.

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Yellow are the walls of summer.

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Sleep is white, as is
sickness, shirt, and revenant.

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What is left us
then but darkness?

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Oneself is always
dark and near."

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