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Best Poems From
ERHARD HANS JOSEF LANG
(January 8,1957)
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61.
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Why Things Don't Think Of Us, Too, In Return?
Why not let troubled things talk and hold council with you?
Or do you relish the birth-pangs' banging between clashes?
Things can't talk, yes, or can they? !
You may only proffer your own fantasy
To give them a mouth-piece?
What are we then?
Just simply a piece of flesh, sensing the numbness of the chair we sit on?
Or are we the brain in the chair? !
I found it not to be a madman's pass-time, only, to let things talk to me through myself:
That perilous leaning tower did exactly not tumble over me when I walked past,
As I had beseeched it not to do so.
And be it that I was just delayed for its fateful fall for speaking my prayers.
And, as a trusting thanks-giver, I find,
I'm yet faring best with things.
And how sweet things may talk to one!
And then they won't talk more than I want them to.
And let us not forget: people are things, too!
And they say, all is in one.
Things called it god.
Erhard Hans Josef Lang
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62.
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Yahvet's Falling In Love (translation with original)
It feels the right thing for a man to hang out thereabouts
And to wonder at our creator's wisdom.
The trees already are in their virgin bloom,
Dear little big sun on the early summer day taking his nose-dive down
into the well-shaft - with a blaze so that
The young man's human frame is being made mellow.
Yahvet is lying in the backyard's meadow,
Enjoying spring-time's lovely feel of warmth stinging on his back.
He is biting on a stalk of grass.
Pressing his head into the fresh grass-field
And watching the manifold tiny insects that bustle and hustle about.
The wasps bumble -
The man falls asleep as he's smiling.
* * * * * * *
He wakes up to a tremendous noise.
The cows are a-lowing, the calves jumping about like wild.
The maids, the knaves are running about as if there were a fire-brand.
Willow fifes are sounding off shrill on top of all.
Also Yahvet has come to notice things -
The maids brought the cattle into the open for a first time.
His sleep is gone from his eyes
And he is looking on as the cattle disappear running into the woods.
Maid Maya alone is staying behind in the backyard.
And from afar are sounding the herdsmen's excellent willow fifes.
Yahvet remains glaring on that selfsame picture for a long time.
How swiftly maid Maya has betaken herself amidst the cows,
Getting busy in her naked calves,
With her striped skirt tucked up to the knees!
Now she stands there at the stairs, her cheeks are red,
Her breasts a-heaving under the itchy linen shirt without sleeves.
With a smile she's straightening her lush hair that went untied in the
turmoil.
There comes the cat of the farm, its back bent,
Its side it is rubbing against Maya's calf rounder than round. -
* * * * * * *
Having seen that a strange kind of longing was kindled in Yahvet..
Down to the shore he stepped where the timber woods are set afloat.
With a groan he took up the largest trunk of the trees
And smashed it onto the ground.
* * *
translation into German:
Wie Jahvet Sich Verliebte
Da paßt es einem Manne sich zu rekeln, des Schöpfers Weisheit zu bewundern.
Die Bäume haben schon ausgeschlagen.
Die liebe Sonne senkt sich in des Brunnenschachtes Nase mit einem Schein am frühen Sommertag, daß des Menschenkindes Knochen weiche werden.
Jahvet liegt in der Wiese auf dem Hinterhof, sich mit herzlichem Genuß an dem brennenden Stechen des Frühlings auf seinem Rücken weidend.
Er beißt auf einem Grashalm herum, drückt seinen Kopf in das junge Grasgrün, und beobachtet wie allerlei krebsiges Getier sich dort rühret.
Wespen brummen - es fallen dem Manne die Augen zu und er lächelt.
* * * * * *
Er wacht zu einem fürchterlichen Lärme auf.
Die Kühe sind am Muhen, die Kälber hüpfen herum wie wild.
Die Mägde, Knechte springen umher als wär ein Feuerbrand.
Weidenpfeifen tönen schrill über alles hinweg.
Auch an Jahvet geht es nicht vorbei - die Mägde haben das Vieh das erste Mal ins freie gelassen.
Der Schlaf hat sich aus den Augen gelöst und er schaut zu, wie das Vieh im Trab sich im Wald verliert.
Im Hof bleibt einzig Maija die Magd zurück.
Und von ferne erklingen der Hirten prächtige Weidenpfeifen.
Eine lange Zeit verweilt Jahvet bei diesem selbigen Bild vor sich hinstierend.
Wie schmissig sich Maija inmitten des Viehs bewegte, sich mit nackten Waden zu schaffen machend, den gestreiften Rock bis zu den Knieen hochgesteckt!
Sie steht jetzt an der Treppe mit roten Wangen.
Die Brüste erheben sich unter ihrem ärmellosen kratzigen Leinenhemd.
Lächelnd streicht sie ihr üppiges Haar zurecht, das sich im Getummel geöffnet hatte.
Kommt dazu hin, mit gekrümmtem Buckel, des Hofes Katze, reibt ihre Seite an Maijas Wade ach so rund. -
* * * * *
Jener Anblick entflammte in Jahvet eine seltenes Begehren.
Zum Ufer, wo das Treibholz ins Wasser gelassen wird, schritt er hin, hob ächzend den längsten Baumstamm hoch, und ließ ihn auf die Erde niederknallen.
Poem by Finnish poet Aaro Hellaakoski (1893 - 1952) ,
translated by Erhard Hans Josef Lang from its original in Finnish:
JAHVETIN RAKASTUMINEN
Passaa siinä miehen kelliskellä, luojan viisautta ihmetellä.
Hiirenkorvalla jo ovat puut.
Aurinkoinen kaivonvintin nenään laskeutuupi paistain kesäisenään jotta
hautuu ihmislapsen luut.
Jahvetti hän pihanurmikolla makaa, herttaisella nautinnolla tuntein
kevään polton seljässänsä.
Puree ruohonkortta.
Painaa päänsä nuoreen ruohokkoon
ja katselee kuinka itikat niin monenlaiset siellä hyörii.
Pörrää ampiaiset - uinahtaapi mies ja hymyilee.
* * * * *
Herää hirmuisehen meteliin.
Lehmät ammuu, vasikat kuin villit hyppii.
Piiat, rengit juoksee niin kuin ois tulipalo.
Pajupillit kimeästi kaiken yli soivat.
Huomaa Jahvettikin - piiat nyt karjan ensi kertaa ulos toivat.
Uni silmistä on hälvennyt
ja hän katsoo kuinka häviääpi juosten karja metsään.
Pihaan jääpi piika Maija vaan.
Ja kaukaa soivat paimenien pajupillit oivat.
Jahvetti hän jääpi tuijottamaan pitkäks aikaa mielikuvaan samaan.
Piika Maija kuinka rivakasti liikkui karjan kesken,
hääräten paljain pohkein, aina polviin asti nostettuna hame raitainen!
Nyt hän seisoo tuossa portahalla punaposkisena.
Rinta huohottaa hihattoman piikkopaidan alla.
Hymyten hän suorii uhkeaa tukkaa, auvennutta kahakassa.
Tulee siihen, selkä kippurassa, talon kissa, hankaa kylkeään Maijan
pohkeesehen pyöreän pyöreään. -
* * * * *
Näky tuo se Jahvettihin sytti oudon himon.
Ranttehelle hän astui, ähkyin hirren pisimmän nosti
ja sen maahan jymähytti.
Aaro Hellaakoski
Erhard Hans Josef Lang
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63.
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Young Narayana (translation)
The beauteous dusk-hued god,
one morning,
was in repose
within the softly swaying sea,
upon a leaf of sea-lily,
nearby the wall of heaven.
He made a flute pipe out of reed and played on it.
The melodies were dropping into the sea
like perfumed, clear dew drops.
And the sea started to cast bubbles all around, .
And from each foaming bubble
sprang up a bloom of sea-lily.
And bees were bringing honey
to the god's lips
from the chalices of the flowers.
And Narayana looked out across the whole sea
with dreaming eyes that comprehended the worlds.
And he saw on a farthest island of corals,
nearby the opposite wall of heaven on the other side
the lovely daughter of the sea,
playing with her hair.
Narayana called out.
And the goddess arrived with the spirits of the wind.
And the young dusk-hued god
made love to the white-flamed daughter of
the sea and wind
with a passion beyond measure.
And the love-making of the gods raised a storm in the sea.
And the waves threw foaming pearls up into the air,
up to heaven's dome.
In the end, Narayana became tired of making love.
And the goddess vanished, way down
into lap of the spirits of the sea.
And her golden diadem was glistening in the sea, for long.
And Narayana took repose on a leave of sea-lily,
his limbs all exhausted.
Then he dipped his left foot into the water.
And countless small fish of gold
were hopping over Narayana's ankle,
drawing a gleaming, wonderful rainbow
against heaven's wall bluer than blue;
which came to rise up from the sea, quite nearby.
And Narayana again surveyed the sea.
Now he observed all these souls of sea-men,
that he negligently had sacrificed
due to his young love.
And the beauteous lovable god felt sad about them
and took them all up from the deep of the sea's bottom
and put them into new frame
and sent them back into life.
The sun sank in the sea
and stars began glittering in heaven's dome.
Narayana picked some of these out,
until his right hand was filled with them,
and he let them slip through his fingers,
dropping them one by one into the sea,
where they shone like the eyes of the daughter of the sea.
And the young tired god dreamfully
watched the sinking of the stars,
until he fell asleep on a leaf of sea-lily,
nearby the wall of heaven.
Erhard Hans Josef Lang
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