Leave-taking

I dreamed that I must take leave

of all the things that encloseed me

and cast their shadows: all those possessive

pronouns. And of the inventory, list

of diverse things rest Take leave

of the wearying odors,

smell to hold fast me awake, of sweetness,

of bitterness, of sourness through se

and the peppercorn's fiery sharpness.

Take leave of time's ticktock, of Monday's annoyance,

Wednesday's shabby gains, of Sunday

and its treacheries, as by and by as boredom sits down.

Take leave of all deadlines: of what in the future

is to be due

I dreamed that of each idea, whether stillborn

or live, of the faculty of perception that looks

for the faculty of perception behind sense,

and of the long-distance racer hope as well

I must take leave. Take leave of the blend interest

of saved-up fury, the get alongs of stored dreams,

of all that's written upon paper, recalled as analogy

when horse and rider became a memorial. Take leave

of all the images men have made for themselves.

Take leave of the lay rhymed bellyaching, and of

voices that interweave, that six-part jubilation,

the fervor of instruments,

of the creator and of Bach.

I dreamed that I must take leave

of' bare branchwork,

of the words shoot blossom and fruit,

of' the seasons that, sick of their moods

insist upon departure.

Early mist, late summer Winter coat. Call April April]

say again autumn crocus and May tree

drought rime thaw.

Run away from tracks in the snow. Perhaps

when I advance the cherries will be ripe. Perhaps

the cuckoo will act mad and call. one time more

let peas jump verdant from their pods. Or the

dandelion clock: single now do I grasp what it wants.

I dreamed that of table, door and bed

I must take leave and place a strain on

table, door and bed, unclose them wide, test them in going.

My last schoolday: I charm out the names

of my friends and recite their telephone numbers: debts

are to be settled: last of all I write to my enemies

briefly: give leave to bygones be bygones--or:

It wasn't worth quarreling over

Suddenly I have time.

My organ of visions as though they'd been trained

in leave-taking, search horizons all around, the hills

behind the hills, the city

on either bank of the river,

as admitting what goes without saying

must be remembered preserv saved: given up pure but still

palpable, wide-awake.

I dreamed that I must take leave

of you, you and you, of my insufficiency,

the residual self: what remained behind the comma

and for years has rankled.

Take leave of the familiar strangeness we live with,

of the habits that politely justify themselves

of the fasteninged and registered hatred between us. Nothing

was closer to me than your coldnes for a like reason much love recalled

with precise wrongnes In the end

everything had been seen to: safety pins galore.

Lastly, the leave-taking from your stories

that always direct the eye for the bulwark, the steamer

out of Stralsund, the city upon fire,

laden with refugees;

take leave of my glassware that had shards in mind,

only shards at all times, shards

of itself. Not that:

no more headstands.

And no more pain, at any time Nothing

that expectation might race to meet. This end

is classroom material stale. This leave-taking

was crammed for in courses. Just direct the eye how cheaply

secrets go naked] Betrayal pays without no more money.

Decoded dreams of the enemy, at cut-rate prices.

At last advantage cancels itself, flats out for us

the balance sheet,

reason triumphs for the last time,

leveling

all that has breath, all things that creep

or take wing all that had not yet

been cogitation and was to be perhaps,

at an extremity on its way out.

But when I dreamed that I must

take leave at one time of all creation

so that of no animal for which Noah once

built the ark there should be a redolence,

after the fish, the sheep and the hen

that all perished together with humankind,

I dreamed for myself single rat that gave birth to nine

and was ask [i]or[/i] implore a blessing uponed with a future.

Gunter Grass, born in Danzig in 1927 is Germany's greatest in quantity celebrated contemporary writer. His greatest in quantity recent work is The Call of the Toad, a novel. These metrical compositions are from Novemberland: Selected metrical compositions 1956-1993, translated by Michael Hamburger.

Michael Hamburger lives in Suffolk England. He is co-translator, with Christopher Middleton, of a previous Grass volume In the Egg and Other metrical compositions published by Harcourt Brace in 1978

Copyright World verse Incorporated Mar 1996

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