A BLESSING FOR WANDERERS

 

(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

 

The years of wandering have begun today.

Each step the wanderer takes is fraught with danger.

He certainly has no wish to sing or pray,

And yet the moment his path turns trickier, stranger

(The moment mist clouds all below, above)

He enters his own heart—that, and the heart of love.

 

                                  --from Verse for the Journey (2014)                     

                       

 

 

 

JUST OPEN . . .

 

(Maria Luise Weissmann)

​

Just open up the door;

Just step onto the sill;

Just lift your eyes a bit more

And feel the bright rays spill

In vast and gleaming streams

That, like the fields, now flow

And dance in heavy dreams

That rise and glimmer, glow . . .

No softly-surging thrill

(wind-borne) you’re not meant for:

Just step onto the sill;

Just open up the door!

 

--from Selected Poems of Maria Luise Weissmann (2015)

 

 

TOWARD HOME

 

(Stefan Zweig)

 

For some time now, no gleam of light;

A sea of mist has sunk

Tower, house, roofs left and right.

We alone press onward, drunk

With lust for Venus, gold and bright,

 

Who leads us on our darkling way

In soft accompaniment.

Joy fills the heart toward end of day . . .

The end for which we sense we’re meant

We go to meet as if at play.

 

--from A Girl & the Weather: Selected

   Poems & Prose of Stefan Zweig (2014)