The Island

Summary

North Sea

I.

The next tide blots the path across the mud-

flats; everything around looks all alike.

That little island out there, though, has shut

its eyes; in dizzy circlings, the dike

surrounds the people, who were born in baffling,

muted sleep, within which they've confused

a host of worlds. Their speech, but rarely used,

makes every sentence seem an epitaph

for something that has washed ashore unknown —

that inexplicably arrives … and stays.

That's how it is with everything their gaze

descries, from childhood on: things useless, grown

too large, uncaring, sent there on their own,

only to emphasize the lonely days.

II.

As if they lay inside some crater on

the moon, the farms are dammed against the sea.

They are the same — those clothes the gardens don

inside — like orphans groomed identically.

The storm that schools them hard can leave them bare

and frighten them with death for endless days.

That's when the people sit inside and stare

(their crooked mirrors render oddities

atop their dressers). Then, as someone's son

steps to the door at dusk, he plays a tune

on his harmonica — weeping; dirge-like.

He heard it that way in a far-off port.

Out there, and almost menacing, some sort

of sheep appears, huge on the outer dike.

III

Nah ist nur Innres; alles andre fern.

Und dieses Innere gedrängt und täglich

mit allem überfüllt und ganz unsäglich.

Die Insel ist wie ein zu kleiner Stern

welchen der Raum nicht merkt und stumm zerstört

in seinem unbewußten Furchtbarsein,

so daß er, unerhellt und überhört,

allein

damit dies alles doch ein Ende nehme

dunkel auf einer selbsterfundnen Bahn

versucht zu gehen, blindlings, nicht im Plan

der Wandelsterne, Sonnen und Systeme.

III.

Only within is near; all else is far.

Within is tightly packed and every day,

brimful with everything they cannot say.

The island is a much-too-little star

space takes no notice of and silently

and dreadfully destroys as if unknown.

A thing unheard — a thing no one can see;