Whispering Villages Desireless Routes Warning Against Weighing

Author: Silke Scheuermann
Translator: Mark Terrill

Whispering Villages

Although our cities are always trying
to make the sky more familiar to us
by creating vista points
balconies terraces
although they claim that from above
one can see the possibly tenderest
place in space
an extra large marble with a blue center
and they tempt us upwards with stairs and elevators
and show us the security measures
railings and nets
the beauty
of the neon signs
trucks so small that we
feel like giants
although the noise from there below
is almost bewitching
sometimes we hear the whispering of the villages
and sometimes we believe some of it
and jump
like Superman

Desireless Routes

The flowers grow so slowly
that no one knows their intent
one can only assume
it’s because they
wanted to prove to each other
the knowledge of all
possible colors
making clear that there’s
something like fashion minimal
changes in the calyx structure
differences which show them
their own preciousness
as though out of fear
they might confirm
the excesses of form

It’s also possible
that this season’s dead
are trying harder
to pull them down by the roots

I see you smiling
between two crocuses

For this smile I had to
walk for hours through the gardens

Warning Against Weighing

You weigh the insect as it is
gold-orange
locked in a box of amber
robbed of every initiative
even that of falling apart

You’re another one nobody warned that small
things become larger by accident that
with time material sticks to you –
people, smells – No one warned you
against the weighing

How weightless you
look while working
like light sorting itself out

And today I’m more
similar to you than usual
as though I didn’t exist at all